Author's note: This story involves an engaged couple, not a married couple, but I still think it belongs most appropriately in Loving Wives.
*****
To really understand what happened, you have to know about Michelle and the way she was raised.
Michelle Hardison grew up in Carey, Ohio, a small town in the northern part of the state. Her father Tom was Vice-President of the First Citizens National Bank, which gave Michelle a certain status among her friends. And since Michelle was an only child; and since her dad was a kind but distant sort of man, who didn't spend much time with her; and since her mother Diane was a housewife who was lonely and didn't have enough to do, Michelle grew up into a sweet but somewhat spoiled girl.
When she wanted horseback-riding lessons, she got them—even if it meant her mother driving her two hours there and back twice a week. When she wanted a cell phone, she got one—even though none of her classmates had one yet. And when she wanted a big circus-themed 12th birthday party, with a clown and an inflatable jumping house, she got them as well.
Michelle was a shy girl, somewhat skinny and quite unremarkable in looks. She had a few friends, but was never at the center of the social whirl in school. And until Matt Pokorny became her boyfriend in 10th grade, she'd never had a date, never done anything sexual, never even kissed a boy.
Matt was shy, like her, and it took the two of them months of glancing at each other in class, sitting with various groups of kids in the school cafeteria, and working together on group projects before he finally got the nerve to sit next to her on the school bus one morning.
A couple of weeks later, Matt asked her out to the movies. Within a few weeks after that, they were going steady. They dated for the rest of high school, progressing slowly from tentative kisses to more heated make-out sessions (especially after Matt got his license and his mom let him borrow the car). They took one another's virginities in May of their senior year in time-honored fashion: in a cheap motel room the night of the senior prom.
By the time they graduated, it was taken for granted that they'd be married one day. Her parents were quite happy with the idea, but counseled them to wait until after college. They applied to the same five schools, and agreed they'd go to the best place they both got into, which turned out to be the University of Illinois.
Being at college meant freedom and privacy to have sex—which they did, a lot. They were both inexperienced but eager, and their sex life was enthusiastic and fun, if vanilla. Hard as it may be to believe, neither of them had ever seen any porn, and their repertoire didn't go beyond a couple of sex positions and some tentative, hesitant experimentation with oral sex. Matt loved the two or three blowjobs Michelle was willing to give, though she was a little grossed-out. Neither of them was all that wild about Matt going down on her. He had no idea what he was doing, while Michelle couldn't really get past the idea that it was dirty, her boyfriend sticking his face in there.
The biggest change in their relationship at Illinois was anatomical: Michelle grew breasts, or rather her rather small breasts grew big. Now they were big, beautiful, heavy, D-sized breasts. She'd been skinny and a little bit plain, and boys besides Matt had never shown much interest. Now she was still a little on the plain side, but her prominent chest meant a lot of attention, from male classmates, guys on her hallways, guys at parties, etc.
Michelle loved Matt, but that didn't mean she ignored the male attention. While she was too shy to really flirt, she certainly learned to smile and bat her eyes a little, and let some of her admirers hang around her in a perfectly innocent way (at least on her side).
As for Matt, he was wild with excitement. He couldn't stop looking at and touching and stroking and sucking Michelle's new boobs, and their sex life ramped up quite a bit—he just couldn't get enough.
At the same time, Matt was well-aware that for the first time he had competition for Michelle's favors. He grew even more attentive, even more helpful and loving and supportive. They'd always studied together, but now he made sure to edit and revise Michelle's papers, to double-check her Econ problem sets. He bought her flowers for no reason, gave her foot-rubs at the end of a long day. He told her how much he loved her.
And she replied in kind. She did love Matt, she always had. But the balance had shifted a bit, even if they never talked about it. They had once been a matched pair, in their own bubble, no one else terribly interested in either of them. Now Michelle was aware of a lot of male interest. She would have denied it if you asked, but she knew she had options.
Perhaps it was partly for this reason that Matt decided to propose, at the end of the summer just before their junior year. They were camping with some high school friends in Daniel Boone National Forest, in Kentucky. A group of about 30 of them, some couples and some singles, took a one-week trip to the same campground for a week in August every year.
On the last night, as they were sitting around a campfire, drinking beer and chatting, listening to the radio, dancing a little, Matt reached behind him and grabbed a can of Miller Lite and handed it to Michelle.
Without paying much attention she went to pop the top—and found herself staring at a small black box, carefully taped to the top of the can.
"Matt, is this? ..."
He'd slid out of his seat and gone to one knee in front of her. Their friends fell silent, watching with big grins.
"Michelle, I have loved you since we were 15—you are the only one for me, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"
She froze a little in shock, and Matt opened the box to show her the ring. Suddenly bursting into tears, she said, "oh my God, Matt—Yes! Yes I'll marry you!"
They fell into one another's arms, barely aware of the chorus of cheers and laughter all around them. He helped her try on the ring and her girlfriends gathered around, all talking at once. Ten feet away Matt's guy friends were congratulating him, teasing him, pounding him on the back.
In their tent that night they made love hungrily, her riding him energetically while he held and stroked her big breasts. When Matt got close to cumming, he pulled Michelle down to him and nibbled hard on her nipple. It brought her off, something that didn't happen very often when they made love, and afterwards they lay quietly in one another's arms, smiling, talking in low voices.
"Baby, you surprised me tonight!"
"I'd been thinking about it for awhile Michelle—and I wasn't about to let you get away."
She kissed him. "I'm not going anywhere. But I loved the surprise, the beer can and all of that. Did everyone know?"
"Just Adam and Sandy. I ran the idea by them, to make sure it wasn't too lame. But Sandy went 'awww!' and told me it was super-romantic, so I thought what the hell.
"Thanks for saying yes, by the way."
She slapped his face gently, and kissed him again. "Don't be a silly boy. You know I'm yours."
The next morning they went for a long walk, before coming back to pack up the tent and their supplies. They agreed they'd continue to wait until after graduation to have the wedding, as they'd always planned. And Michelle had another idea, one that made Matt very happy.
"Honey, I just love the ring you picked out for me. It's perfect! And I want to get you one too. Would you wear one from me—a promise ring or something?"
Matt smiled widely and gave her an enormous hug, pulling her body tightly against him. "I love you so much," he whispered in her ear. "And I would be thrilled to wear your ring."
***************
It was the next summer that the trouble came. They were back at Daniel Boone for the week, with most of the same people, but with a couple of new ones. One was Anthony Lotari, the older brother of one of Michelle's friends. None of them had seen him in years; and it was clear right away that he was potential trouble.
At least Matt thought so—Michelle and most of the girls thought he was a hunk. Anthony was older, about 29, a big strong guy who worked construction in Cincinnati during the year. He was charming and flirty, in a blue-collar kind of way. And he seemed to take a particular interest in Michelle, or at least in Michelle's tits.
He was always talking to her, teasing or winking an eye, paying her a compliment and stroking her arm gently. Nothing over the line, and certainly nothing so overt that Matt could ever call him on it. And he was careful to play the same games with some of the other girls.
On the fifth day of the week, Anthony tripped on a log and twisted his ankle. He and Michelle and some others had been planning to hike one of the 5-mile trails that day, but he had to stay behind, his ankle up on a portable chair with an ice pack on it.
And when the group of hikers returned about 4 pm, sweaty and cheerful, teasing each other about how they smelled, Michelle was nowhere to be seen.
Matt said, "hey Adam, where's Michelle? Wasn't she with you?"
Adam looked baffled. He said, "yeah, she was, for a while—hey Sandy, do you know what happened to Michelle?"
Startled, Sandy turned around, but she avoided Matt's eyes. "Yeah, she, uh ... she wanted to, uh, see one of those little waterfalls off the trail. She should be back in a little while."
Matt jumped to his feet, carelessly putting weight on his ankle. He grimaced, and quickly sat down again. "Is she alone? Who's with her?"
Sandy looked embarrassed. She said nothing, until Adam looked hard at her. "Well, babe?"
Reluctantly Sandy said, "I, uh, think that Anthony volunteered to go with her."
Silence. Matt and Adam looked at one another, but neither one spoke.
Finally Matt said, "okay, Sandy, thanks. I guess I'll, uh, just wait here until they get back."
It was more than an hour—a brutal hour for Matt, sitting there with his leg propped up, watching everyone else washing up, preparing to get a fire going, working on the communal dinner. And when Michelle finally returned, it wasn't any better.
She came into the campsite alone, and it was nearly a minute before Anthony appeared behind her. Walking right over to Matt, she bent down and kissed his cheek. "Hey honey, how is the ankle? Sorry you couldn't join us."
Matt stared at her, noticing she wasn't meeting his eyes. She looked sweaty and tired like the others, but also a bit flushed. "I'm okay," he murmured; he hardly knew what to say. He was getting an extremely strange vibe from her.
