My husband is insanely jealous.

Over the years his expressions of jealous anger, the bitter sarcasm and even some of the things he did ostensibly to please me, or to just lay his claim on me as his wife, was done out of some jealous grudge. All the little, petty things that I noticed convinced me that my husband was not simply jealous, but insanely so.

Oh, Ved is smart, cool, and confident. He exudes that sense of inner power and smiling control that men like him seem to be born with. He’s not handsome, or good-looking in a film star or male model kind of way, but because of a certain inexplicable attitude that he conveys, people find him very attractive; and it’s not just the women, I can tell you that!

But I know that’s only a façade. And I know you think I’m the eternal wife with her eternal bitching. But so what? I’m entitled to some bitching. How long do you think you guys are going to get away with it?

Me? I’ve been a transparent person most of my life And things never really changed after Ved and I married, till very recently. No, children, I wasn’t born in a glass factory, and being transparent means that I don’t hide my opinions and emotions, and come out very strongly when I have to.

At first Ved just coped with, perhaps tolerated, my occasional dramatic outbursts of pain, anger, and possessiveness. Then a year or so later, he began to retaliate. I’ve suffered the stinging slaps that filled my eyes with tears, the drunken punch on my jaw that rattled my teeth, and the verbal abuse. While the pain subsided, an unexplainable something seemed to create an indifference in me, and while it may be an over worn cliché to use, there was a void in me.

Now, three years after we married, I’ve stripped Ved down to the bone. I like to believe he’s now as transparent as I want him. But he’s capable of concealing that transparency from everyone else; and when he so desires with selected people, he reveals an opacity that wins their trust and beguiles them into thinking they are sharing some earth-shattering secret with him.

Ved is the good guy with all and sundry. I must admit in all fairness though, that is a quality to admire. Oh, and I’ve been told that I’m certainly the best thing that’s happened to him. When Ved’s blood relations tell you something like that, you better believe it! Because, for their ‘darling Ved’ nothing could be better than them. They’ve mollycoddled, pampered and protected him; showered him with the gifts a fortunate family like theirs can well afford, who are bestowed not just with wealth, but with an abundance of family love. They indulgently allowed him a first marriage with a girl of his choice, the consequent messy divorce, and sooner than they could react, a second marriage to me, again without their approval.

Anyway, to get to the point, Ved’s jealousy hit me in spurts and bursts. Look, I’m on the plump side, but I’m nice to look at with an attractive enough body, though my tits do need a little propping up now and then. I wear clothes well; apply makeup strategically but sparingly; can actually make both ‘intelligent’ and ‘appropriate-noises’ conversation whenever occasion demands; I drink and smoke like the men, not because I’m trying to prove something as some of them presume, but because I was doing it before I even met some of these jerks.

At first it was the little things like his “confirmed” suspicions that I was being especially “overt” with one of his friends. And what was Anil doing putting his finger in your glass of rum, then licking it as if it was your pussy? Now that I come to think of it, it was probably some hidden sexual message that Anil was giving me. Yet from what I recall, at that time all Anil had done was something as innocuous as removing a peanut floating in the glass of booze that he’d got me from the bar and eating it up.

That’s another thing. Men are very attracted to me too. I’m not Aishwarya Rai or Sushmita Sen, or even close to those beauty queens, but at any party I eventually end up with a lot of the men surrounding me. Wives who don’t know me get jealous and form their own catty clique which excludes me, or they pretend its all terribly good fun and hey, let’s party! Then there are the few who’ll make it a point to join me with the men, which I actually welcome, because I do get self-conscious among all those leery men.

And see, I do love Ved. I married him because I love him. He isn’t the first guy I’ve had. I’ve been through a couple of affairs myself, both lovely when they started out and traumatic at the end. I’ve had a number of one-night stands and heard many promises never kept. So when I finally make myself realise that things couldn’t carry on the way they were, along comes Mr Ved Vihar. The first year was bliss for the two of us. Despite all the jealousy and transparency, life was good together. We were both doing well, and though our dual income was assuming a certain recklessness in disposability, we were happy.

Then I began to strip him away. To expose him to himself. Hold up this mirror so he could see himself ‘naked’ without his veneer and the accoutrements. He didn’t like it at all, and when I realised that his inflated self-confidence had waned, at least with me, I stopped. His work also suffered for awhile, and then he made a sudden decision to change his ‘career path’. From a safe job with a multinational at a middle management level, Ved switched to high profile PR and Marketing which he set up on his own. With a lot of help from his family, needless to say. The initial months of uncertain clientele stepped up his own insecurity, and as his wife I was the natural target to transfer this insecurity with his fits of acrimonious jealousy, which resulted often in extreme passion or violent outbursts.

Making love to Ved was good. Why am I speaking of him in the past tense? He’s still my husband and we still have sex. I suppose that’s my transparency. You’ll notice I said sex, not making love…

Making love to Ved is good, was better. When we were dating prior to our marriage, he had been a little intimidated by my forwardness and my aggressive attitude in bed, making him lose his hard-on, or to come in a couple of strokes. He would then have to revert to using his fingers, and it would take me that much longer to orgasm. So for a while there it was no fun. Then he sorted himself out once he and I had become an item, and soon became a tiger in bed. He couldn’t get enough of me and I couldn’t get enough of him. There were times when we both bunked work to just stay at home for two or three days and fuck ourselves silly.

In the beginning Ved got jealous because I was paying close attention to some guy or vice versa. He created a scene each time, either storming out of the place we were at, leaving me to hitch a ride home with some commiserating twerp and his wife; or he would go into super-silent, I’m-ignoring-you mode till we got home, where he would rage at me with sarcasm laced with venom. Men are really bitchy too, you know.

But we’d make up. He’d apologise, we’d joke, and then would make passionate love. It was love then, a little beyond mere sex. Later, he hit me for the first time. He also apologised again and we made love, but we didn’t joke that time.

Ved is a good dancer. He’s tall with long legs, a mobile waist, and quite fancy with his footwork. He loves music and loves to dance any chance he gets. I’m not that good. I move well enough I suppose, keeping to the rhythms more or less, but I’m self-conscious. And since I gained some extra weight, I hate my breasts flopping about inside my top when I dance. Ved has a lot of energy on a dance floor, and regardless of how many he’s drunk or the joints he’s smoked, he can get on to the floor and really move. I found him sexy on the dance floor, so I liked watching him, but when I danced with him for too long, I somehow felt my space being cramped, and imagined people snidely commenting on how odd we looked. One such night out, I’d declined the fourth or fifth dance with him, so while I quenched myself with a beer and chased a tequila after it, Ved was gyrating on the floor with some woman who was part of our gang that night.

There I was minding myself, when as usually happens at such gatherings, that woman’s neglected lover or husband, or escort for the evening, I forget what, consequently felt obliged to ask me to dance. I hesitated at first but seeing the man’s woebegone look, I got up and took his arm. Ved and the woman were trying to set the dance floor on fire, as lights flashed psychedelically, the strobes making instant statuary of them, the hysterical pop music making the bass speakers thump, accelerating heartbeats, as the giant TV screens around the dance floor silently showed replays of football and cricket matches. The woman danced quite well, and the two of them seemed to be inspiring the other with an air of gay abandonment about them, as they say. Ved, unlike the blacks, whose movements he tries to emulate, is far more restrained and not as blatantly sexual in the thrust of his hips and behind when dancing. Ved caught my eye as we moved about on the floor and grinned at me. It was during one of these glances that he saw my partner’s hand brushing off my backside. The next song was an unexpected slow track, and the dodo with me suddenly clasped me to him and began to pirouette around the floor.

Of all the rotten luck, not only did this guy not know how to move naturally to a rhythm which Ved was great at, but he kept stomping my feet and clutching me around my shoulders and above my arse so that he wouldn’t trip and fall on his face. So it’s okay if some other arsehole paws you all over on the dance floor, but with me you get a headache, or you’re thirsty, or your fucking calves pain. Why can’t I dance with you and paw you all over? You’re my wife goddamnit! This silly accusation happening later at home that night, was threatening to become violent, and I stupidly accused him of putting on a public display with the woman. He said, it’s a fucking disco, for god’s sake, you are expected to make a public display! Things began to get bitter, and some long forgotten past incidents got raked up, and before I knew it, he’d slapped me.

I reacted instantly and slapped him back, but not as hard. Then I started crying, and all of a sudden he was crying too, and I kept slapping him ineffectually. I tore at his shirt in anger, ripped it off, and before I knew what was happening, he’d ripped my clothes off as well. We ended up fucking with a lot of passion and after a long time we orgasmed together. While at that instant it gave us a moment of pure satisfaction, eventually post-coital lethargy masquerading as make-believe-true-love gave way to a strained and tense equation for both of us.

His work required him to travel frequently and for extended periods. I hate staying alone, and though I like my space and privacy as much as the next person, it’s reassuring when someone is there at night. During Ved’s long absences, friends would stay over the night sleeping on the couch or floor cushions, and often offers to share my grass widow’s bed were extended blatantly or hinted at jokingly, but I always refused, tactfully and politely. I’m not saying I’ve not been tempted, but I’m a strong believer in marital fidelity, no matter what you bitches say!

Ved would sulk and get grumpy about these overnight visitors. He would accuse me of trying to seduce them, being a cock tease, not fully trusting me, blah, blah, blah, blah. He wouldn’t want to meet these guys and our sex life began to wilt, literally speaking. Then during one rare afternoon of sweet, cloying love making heightened by good marijuana and vodka, I found Ved responding libidinously to a fantasy I’d begun to concoct while he was just semi-hard inside me. I felt his penis enlarge from half-hearted to full-throated inside my now very wet cunt, and he toppled over with me astride him, jammed his finger into my anus as he thrust his cock upwards, and huskily asked me to fuck him and to continue with my story. I did. He soon came in copious amounts of semen that flooded my vagina, and managed to stay erect till I too came.

I began to use my fantasies with him in small doses after that. He was helpless then; burdened with his tumescent libido, his jealous mind, and my increasingly graphical fantasising, I ensured regular sessions of enjoyable and satisfying love making. I knew that I was torturing him during these bouts, but I would gently and lovingly reassure him that they were only fantasies after all. He rock’n’rolled with disparate emotions and would tell me, You’re a cunning bitch! You’ve created a situation where I will believe all that you fantasize as real, and agonise over it when I’m away. Or if I remain quiet about it then you will tell me that I don’t care about you, or if I react jealously and start questioning you, then you’ll make things up that will live in separate worlds of half truths for me. I confess I enjoyed this sense of power I had over him that made him transparent enough to expose his own weaknesses to me.

But then he began to indulge me my fantasies. This, I realise today, was his way of hitting back at me. One of my minor fantasies which had turned on both of us on occasion, was fucking him in the arse. Having no dildo, he allowed me to insert a smooth, rounded carrot into his rectum one day. I’m still not sure how much he enjoyed it, but I was hungry for his cock for quite some time after that.

Another fantasy was him watching me making it with another man who wouldn’t be aware of Ved the Voyeur, and after he left, Ved would fuck me madly and we would fall in love with each other all over again. While we would actually fuck madly during my telling of this fantasy and soak in our love for the other, the fantasy becoming reality added a twist to our relationship.

One night, a young colleague of mine who had dropped in unannounced stayed over to share whatever we were having for dinner. We both knew the guy had a crush on me, and in the kitchen helping me with the food, Ved whispered in my ear, Tonight’s voyeur night, darling! Squeezing me hardon the buttocks as he took a plate of food out to the table, he gave me a long stare that dared me to make my fantasy real. At the dinner table, he glibly worked out a tale of an urgent meeting with a client that had just come up unexpectedly, but very charmingly asked my colleague to stay as long as he wanted and to even spend the night if he so wished. After dinner, Ved left the house with very obvious signs of departure, leaving me to tempt this young stud into our marital bed, the first time any one else would sleep in it.

I felt incompetent and stupid, and bolstered my courage with a stiff rum and coke and an unnecessary joint which wasted itself in the ashtray. The spontaneity of the event had unsettled me and I wondered how to seduce the young Jagdeep, who seemed blissfully unaware of what was happening, though I think he could sense some sexual tension in the air. Anyway, despite my uneasiness and the feeling that things might be getting out of hand, it wasn’t at all hard to achieve my purpose. Some cleavage intentionally revealed, a casually straying hand on his thigh, a huskiness in my voice coupled with childish giggling, and a physical proximity that could amount to cuddling in someone else’s opinion, and Jagdeep was a pushover. In any case, the guy had once confessed to wanting to have an affair with me, so there was really not much effort required on my part. Men properly cajoled, especially in their youth, are easy lays, and at this stage in their lives, think only with their penises.

With a little help from me, Jagdeep had got my blouse and bra off by the time I got him to the bed. It had been forty five minutes since Ved had left and by now I was horny too with the alcohol-marijuana combination moving things along quite well, thank you! Jagdeep undressed was not as impressive as he was clothed. He had a reasonably athletic body not yet gone to fat, a little too hairy for my taste, and a dick that might impress younger females, but I’d seen better and Ved certainly was. He had cute tight behind though, which I enjoyed caressing and occasionally slapping.

He began to go down on me, and I was a little uneasy with that but couldn’t stop him. He went down like a whale submerging after a deep breath and soon came up after a few moments of tonguing me, when he noticed the psoriasis between my pubic hairs. He asked me about it and I could see he was a little put-off so I gently mumbled things about monthlies and female problems of recurring obviousness, and grabbed him by the balls.

Ved had said during our fantasy times, that no one other than him had the right to get his cock sucked or to penetrate my anus. But right then I needed to be fucked and desperate not to lose Jagdeep’s already flagging interest, I bent over and popped J’s half a hardon into my mouth and began to give it a workout. It was good thing that J too wanted my pussy, because by the time he’d achieved a fully primed erection, I heard the front door close ever so softly. I hadn’t bothered to lock the bedroom door, and from the corner of my eyes I saw it swing open a little tentatively. I made loud moaning and groaning noises and soon had Jagdeep well entrenched in my pussy, his humping back to the now much wider open door.

Suddenly the thrill was magnified. Jagdeep had his eyes closed and he was thrusting inside me in short, spasmodic jerks. I was penetrated but not really filled up so I crossed my legs over his buttocks and pressed down. He increased his humping of me like a randy dog, youth that he was, and I saw Ved slyly peeking in. With his back to the door Jagdeep had no clue as to what was going on and I saw my fantasy becoming reality. All of a sudden, I felt deeply in love with Ved for allowing it to happen, and with Jagdeep for making it happen. I cupped his face and kissed him wetly all over, meshing my tongue with his, spittle, alcohol and pussy juice mingling, as I pushed my hips up to get the full force of his thrusts. The next time I looked I saw Ved was standing inside the room, caressing the hardon jutting out of his trousers as he watched us.

Jagdeep came suddenly and his orgasmic shudders made him look like an epileptic. I was disappointed because for some reason I had expected him to last all night. After all, that is what my fantasy entailed: an all-night hardon attached to a virile, young lover. He collapsed and lay panting on me, his hot breath warming my now cold, regressed nipples. Ved was no longer there and it was a sign for me to push Jagdeep off.

He protested and wanted to do it again after he’d rested a bit, but I’d lost it for him, wanted him out of the house and I told him as much. His look of hurt and frustration and his nearly tearful expression almost made me relent, but I laughed viciously at him and told him to go screw all the teenage girlfriends he was always telling me stories about. While dressing, he abused me, calling me a whore, and hoped he had not caught some disease from me, an obvious reference to his encounter with my psoriasis. He soon left, banging the door shut, and in walked Ved. He’d stripped naked, having hidden himself on the back terrace till Jagdeep left. As he approached me lying on the bed, I noticed he hadn’t got a hardon and I could see I had a tough night ahead.