Another 'loving wives' story with no real sex action, so be pre-warned.
Like the 'hero', I know little about medical terms and things, so I apologise in advance if I got anything wrong.
Hope you enjoy it!
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The perfect marriage eh!
Yes, that's what I had.
Or at least as far as I was concerned, that was indeed the case.
My wife Hilly and I had tied the proverbial knot nearly twenty years ago. In fact the twenty years were up in a few weeks time, the tenth of December, and I could honestly say that I couldn't have changed much to have made our life together much better. We had the odd argument of course, but the making up was always that much sweeter.
That's just the way we were.
There had only been one really black period in our marriage, and that was in the second year. We'd both married young, me twenty, and Hilly just eighteen, and we'd been childhood sweethearts, living just round the corner from one another. My elder brother Bob had married her sister, Pam, the year before, and it just seemed the right thing to do.
Our problem was that the other two had produced their first child during the first year, but it seemed that we were unable.
We took tests --- both of us, even though the doctors told us we were worrying too much and to just let it happen, but the problem was Hilly's parents, or rather her mother, who kept on at us to get on with starting a family.
Their family were like that of course, and besides her sister Pam, Hilly had three other sisters. Jan, my mother in law, was so desperate for a son in the family having failed to produce one herself, and of course Bob and Pam's firstborn had been yet another girl.
Pressure!
The results from the tests were pretty inconclusive as it happened. Hilly was Ok, and I had a slightly below level sperm count or something.
I never really understood any of it. The doctors assured us that it wasn't too serious, and that all was OK, and to just be patient, and that our first baby would surely make it's own mind up when to arrive.
We were patient, but that didn't mean it didn't put strain on our marriage. Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long as it turned out, and during our third year of marriage Hilly produced just as the doctor had promised.
Linda ---- a beautiful little baby in all respects, but yet another girl. It did at least allay our fears whether we could have a child or not, and from then on everything settled down, and our marriage became the perfect arrangement and carried on that way. No doubt because we were more relaxed about it, Hilly soon became pregnant again, and at last Tom was born.
Yes a boy, and the whole family were over the moon with joy. Now don't get the impression that the girl babies were over looked or less loved in any way, but that first son in the family simply seemed to make everything special.
"Well, it was me that did it first," I bragged to my big brother, but all he did was smile back at me and tell me to give him time.
Well ---- he got that and sure enough the following year they had their first son, and bugger me if eight months later if we didn't have yet another, who we called Mike.
Like busses wasn't it. You wait for an eternity, and then a whole load of them come along at the same time!
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I suppose because we were two brothers and two sisters, that we all lived like one big happy family. Even when Hilly's other sisters got married, they just seemed to be drawn in. It was great for the kids and of course none of us ever lacked for a babysitter when we needed one.
As far as I know, the other couples were just as happy as Hilly and I were, simply enjoying the wonder of a simple married life, with loving family around.
There were a few other hitches, such as when Bob had his accident at work, and I had to be virtually strapped up alongside him it seemed, as they slowly transfused my blood into him. He got over it and of course I was none the worse for it, often joking in a brotherly way that we were truly blood brothers now.
As we approached our twentieth anniversary, we were wondering how to celebrate it. Bob and Pam had celebrated theirs the year before and everyone had enjoyed getting together so much, that we decided to do just about the same thing, and had booked a private room in the local hotel for a big gathering of family and friends.
By then Linda was a very pretty girl of seventeen, a younger and probably even prettier version of her mother, with lustrous dark brown hair, and huge green eyes that caught your attention whenever she looked in your direction. They were built much the same as well; both slender with nice legs and all the other bits and pieces that perhaps a father shouldn't dwell upon too much. She of course had a succession of boy friends, and the house always seemed to have one or other of them either coming or going, but she had a sensible head on her shoulders so we just went with the tide.
Tom was, I always thought, a bit more like me. Sturdier in build and it suited him. He loved rugby just as Bob and I had at his age, and at almost sixteen he was already a regular choice at fly half for his school first team.
And young Mike, the youngest!
Well ----- perhaps he was going through a difficult period, and not being as good at sport as Tom, or for that matter as popular as Linda, poor Mike wasn't having the best of years.
Nothing serious you understand; he was very intelligent, probably more so than the other two, and did very well at school. Just acting like a perfectly normal, totally impossible to understand teenager.
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That day!
Perhaps I should have been more understanding that day.
Perhaps I should have ignored the mess he'd left on the dining table.
Perhaps I should have just cleared it up after him.
But did I?
No!
"You're not going out till you've cleared up that mess Mike," I told him firmly.
"I'll do it later," he replied sulkily.
"You'll do it now Mike," I insisted.
"Why are you always picking on me?" He shouted back, losing his temper.
"I'm not," I spoke abruptly to him. "You're a member of this family and you'll abide by our rules the same as the others."
"Who's going to make me," Mike almost cried, really losing his rag.
"I am," I got back at him, beginning to lose mine. "I'm your father and you'll do as I say."
"My father are you," he screamed back. "You sure about that?"
I came to a sudden halt, my next repost still buried in my throat, shocked at what he'd just said.
"Sorry Dad," Mike jumped in with, a pained look on his face. "Sorry Dad ---- I didn't mean to say that. I'll clear it up straight away."
With that he looked away from me and scrabbled about on the table, picking up the books and other things that he had left there. Minutes later it was all clear and he scooted out of the room without saying another word, leaving me in a world of my own, wondering if that world was about to cave in on me.
Trouble was of course Mike was and had always been so different from the other two, more studious, more serious, but less gregarious than his older siblings.
I'd often wondered why he was so different, and had even discussed it with Hilly, but she'd just shrugged her shoulders and told me that I was imagining it.
Was I?
Had I been?
What on earth had prompted Mike to make that remark?
If he'd just shouted it out in anger and stormed off, then I would have been pissed off with him, but that would have been the end of it. But he'd been so quick to apologise and withdraw the remark ---- Why was that?
What did he know that I didn't?
Oh shit!
I really didn't want to be thinking the thoughts that were going through my troubled brain at that moment.
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My first reaction was to rush off and find Hilly and demand to know what she had been up to.
