Retro

I fell in love in my early twenties, not long after I left college. Until then I had felt little emotional attachment to any woman. I enjoyed sex with various girlfriends and there was plenty of affection, but sooner or later we would go our separate ways.

Then I met Sheila at a friend's wedding. We hit it off right away and on our first date about a week later I think we both recognised our mutual attraction was something special. Sheila moved in with me within a month and we were all over each other like a rash.

Making love with Sheila was an amazing experience. We enjoyed all the usual touchy-feely tactile stuff, as we physically stimulated one another, but there was much more. The sounds, smells and tastes of Sheila as we made love just seemed to overwhelm my senses. Then there were the special moments when we paused and gazed into each other's eyes.

Within a year we were married and living happily together. I think everything would have been fine if I hadn't been curious about Sheila's past. We were in love and that should have been enough, but it's almost inevitable that a couple will discuss their pasts to some extent. With hindsight we should have avoided discussing previous relationships in any detail.

Unfortunately, Sheila chose the afterglow of one of our love-making sessions to tell me an amusing little anecdote about her former boyfriend, James. It seems he decided to cook dinner naked after Sheila and he had made love. The prep in the kitchen involved chopping up some fresh red chilli peppers, then he went to the toilet. Sheila smiled as she recalled how he yelled with pain and she had to get ice from the freezer to help cool down his burning member.

The details of the story were not particularly shocking or even titillating. But something changed. I had been given a brief glimpse into the intimacy of Sheila's previous relationship and it was as if a switch flicked in my brain. I became fixated on her romantic history. It was all in the past and had happened well before I met Sheila, but I was unaccountably angry and jealous.

My romantic history was undoubtedly more extensive than Sheila's, but the thought she had been intimate with anyone other than me started plaguing me. I imagined her in situations with her ex, just as if it was happening in real time, right in front of me. It was as if she was cheating on me. I would get angry with her, pick an argument about where she had been that day, who she had been with and whether she had got up to anything behind my back.

Her past became my present. I'd take some trivial or insignificant event and my mind would paint a hugely vivid scenario that tortured me without mercy. I questioned Sheila almost incessantly. I knew it was illogical, but I couldn't help myself. She'd say something like, "You don't need to know that", but I was insistent and eventually I would wear her down and she would give in. I found out James had liked to do her doggy style, had good stamina and that his oral skills were highly effective.

Her previous relationship was the first thing I thought about in the morning and the last thing at night. I was constantly wrestling with her past, judging her and then trying to make her feel guilty about having done all these things with James.

It was very hard on Sheila. She was calm and loving at first, trying to reassure me by making it clear that I occupied a special place in her heart. That helped for a little while, but the same recurring thoughts would return to overwhelm me, often with a renewed intensity. It became a cycle of steadily increasing jealousy and less effective reassurance.

Then one day I came home after work and Sheila was on her hands and knees on the floor of our lounge, getting banged doggy style by a bearded man.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I screamed at her.

She looked me straight in the eyes. "This is James," she grunted, as he continued to thrust into her. "You and I have done enough talking. I've run out of words and I'm sick and tired of being punished for the past. This is what you wanted, isn't it? Now you really can be angry and jealous."