Her heart skipped a beat and her breath quickened as she heard his car pull into the driveway. She stood up from her easy chair and faced the doorway, desperately trying to calm herself down. If she acted a little funny, he might suspect something right off. That would put him on the defensive, and the last thing she wanted him to think was that she was attacking him in any way, shape or form. She wanted to be calm and rational about the whole thing. That was the best way to handle it, she decided.
She met him at the door as it opened, giving him a big hug and a kiss as soon as he was inside. This took him by surprise, though he was quick to recover. They embraced for a long time, until finally Owen pushed her away just enough so he could close the door.
"Well… I'd say you missed me while I was gone," he said in a chipper voice. During his ride home, once he was away from Tina, he could feel only happiness that he had made a new friend in the neighborhood.
"Of course I missed you," Rita said, bringing in her training as a cheerleader. She took her husband's hands and held them away from his body, smiling as though she didn't have a care in the world.
"What's for dinner honey?" he asked, dropping her hands and getting out of his coat. "I really worked up an appetite with those kids. By the way, I met one of our neighbors… Tina Reed. She says she and her husband would like to have us over to their house sometime soon."
Rita smiled. "That's nice. Uh… before we have dinner, though, there's something I'd like to talk to you about."
"Can't it wait until after dinner," Owen said in a tired voice. "I'm kind of hungry, and I think better on a full stomach."
As Owen walked away from her to get a little cleaned up for eating, Rita sighed to keep her courage up. He was acting like he were back in college, where nothing was very important.
"I'd rather not wait until after dinner," she said, her concern coming through in the tone of her voice. "I've been thinking about this all day, and I want to get it over with."
Even now, Owen didn't appear to be taking her very seriously. He came out of the bathroom drying his hands on a towel. "Okay, honey," he said in a chipper voice. "I'm all ears."
"This is no laughing matter," Rita said, turning away from him. She couldn't look at him, and she still didn't know where to begin. Owen wasn't making this any easier on her either.
The silence behind her told her that Owen was waiting for her to say something. She took a deep breath and spun around.
"You don't satisfy me in bed," she said quickly, getting the words out before she had a chance to change her mind.
Owen looked at her, his hands still running through the towel. His face carried no expression, and Rita didn't know what he was thinking. She looked at him wonderingly, as though he was supposed to be saying something.
"Is that all?" he said, blandly.
"Isn't that enough?"
"Well… suppose you tell me what your problem is," he said, letting Rita know he hadn't understood what she meant.
"It's not my problem… it's yours."
"Mine?" he said, raising his voice and smiling as though she were pulling a joke on him. "You're crazy."
"No I'm not," she snapped at him. "You haven't made me cum since we've come back from our honeymoon."
"Look – I'm hungry and tired. Suppose we have something to eat and we can…"
"No!" Rita said, putting her hands on her hips and glowering at him. "This isn't college, Owen. You can't just pretend that problems don't exist. I haven't told you before because I didn't know what to say. Now I'm telling you before things get worse."
For the first time since they had started the conversation, Owen began to catch the drift of what she was saying.
"Now let me see if I have this right," he said, fighting hard to control himself. "You're telling me that I don't make you cum, is that right?"
Rita shook her head as though she was coming out of a trance. She had actually used that word without even thinking about it. She couldn't remember a time when she had said "cum" in a normal conversation, and the mere sound of the word made her blush a little.
"That's right," she said in a soft voice.
"I think you're full of shit," Owen said, tossing the towel aside and lifting his head a little. "I think it's all your problem, not mine. Remember, you were a virgin when I married you. I've had some experience with women, and I never heard any of them complain before."
"You were never married to any of them," Rita shot back, determined that she would maintain her courage in the face of her husband. "Things were all right for a while, but they… they dropped off."
"And you think it's my fault?" Owen just couldn't believe what she was telling him.
"Honey, please, I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. I'm saying that… that…"
"You're saying that I don't know how to fuck my wife, is that it?"
"All right, yes, damn it. That's it," she snapped, pursing her lips.
Owen looked at her as though she had just told him that the world was flat. "You really believe that, don't you," he said in an icy cold voice that made Rita shiver. She had never seen him look like he did now. He was obviously gritting his teeth, and his lips were curled slightly, and pursed as though he were concentrating all his strength on his mouth.
"Don't look at me like that," Rita said, trying to calm down a little, and in doing so hoping that she could calm her husband down as well. She hadn't known how he would take what she had to tell him, but she never thought he would take it so badly. "I'm not saying that you can't, Owen. I know you've been under a lot of pressure, and…"
"And nothing, you little frigid bitch," Owen snapped. "Pressure is something I handle very well. Christ, I have less pressure now than I did in college. I think you've just got too high an opinion of yourself. You can't orgasm, and you've decided that you want to blame me. You refuse to put the blame where it lies, Rita, and that's with you. Don't try and make me feel guilty."
They looked at each other for a moment, though it felt like an eternity to Rita. She decided that she wasn't handling this very well at all, and she was the first to turn away. Maybe if they ate dinner, they would be able to come back to the problem later. She wished she had taken Owen's suggestion that they eat first. Things might have been a little more rational if she had.
"Let's eat, honey," she said, moving toward the kitchen.
"You eat," Owen said, walking to the closet where he had hung his coat. "I don't think you'll want to be in the same house with me. Not if I can't give you what you want."
"Owen! Where are you going?"
"Don't try and make me believe you care, bitch," he snapped, slipping into his coat. "I'm not the husband you thought I would be, so why should you care where I'm going."
The lovely blonde woman opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't think of any words. She watched in wide-eyed amazement as Owen pulled open the door and walked out, slamming the door so hard that he made the glass window rattle. Rita stood in the dining room, staring at the door, not believing that he had walked out on her like that, until she heard the car starting, and then pulling away.
Just two doors down, Tina happened to be at her window, looking over the snow-covered, silent landscape while Bob mixed some before dinner drinks. At first she was a little confused by what she had seen. It certainly looked like Owen and Rita had just had a little spat and Owen had walked out. When she saw the handsome football player jump in his car and swerve several times on the icy road, she knew something was wrong, and she decided on the spur of the moment that this was the opening she and her husband had been looking for.
"Love," she said quickly, turning away from the window and hurrying to get her coat and car-keys. "Forget everything. Something's happened over at the Temples' that might make both our lives a lot happier."