Author's Note: It seems I haven't got the cheating wife bug out of my system yet, so here's one more little story. No happy endings here.

"How long have you been fucking him?" I asked gently.

Amanda gasped. "Rob, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about! Stop this at once!" The tone was trying very hard for anger and incredulity, but sounded more worried than anything.

I sat there and just stared at her. The emotion I was feeling most of all was sadness. Sadness that it had come to this. I had done all I could and this is how it got repaid.

My name is Robert Martin, and I first met Amanda Pierce at Emory University, in Atlanta, about fifteen years ago. I was the only child of a couple of pecan farmers down in southern Georgia, and their goal in life was to make sure their only chick and child went to college, come hell or high water, as my daddy used to say.

Well, I went, I did good, and then it all went to hell.

My parents were killed on I-75 driving up to visit me in Atlanta, because I had ended up in the hospital due to a couple of badly broken legs as a result of falling on the icy steps in January. It didn't get frosty very often and I wasn't used to it. Falling down was my own fault and I signed a waiver saying I wouldn't sue the university. I just wasn't looking where I was going.

So there I was, laid up in traction and finding out from a grim faced Georgia State Trooper that I was an orphan. Life sure was grand.

I spent a month in the hospital, and it was the worst month of my life. As the bones itched and I gobbled up rosehips, I sobbed into my pillow at night and put on a game face during the day. I'd be damned if I'd let any of these assholes see me cry.

When they finally let me out, I had no financial aid, no place to live and no prospects. And of course, I had a giant pile of hospital bills I hadn't a hope of paying. My parents, as I said, were a couple of pecan farmers and they sure as hell didn't have any savings. We lived paycheck to paycheck and every spare dollar went into my college fund. That fund quickly disappeared though, and I had to get a job on my newly healed legs.

I ended up qualifying for work study and went to work in the campus bookstore. Which is where I met Amanda Pierce and where the rest of my life began.

She came strolling into the bookstore one gorgeous September day and took my heart away.

Now I have always been a fan of the more voluptuous body shape. Scrawny hips and scant thighs and flat stomachs never interested me. I guess it came from my farming stock. Skinny farmers and farmers wives didn't eat well, and were thus not prosperous and wouldn't make good mates, or some damn shit, I don't know. All I know is that throughout my less than prolific dating career I'd almost always gone for the bigger girls.

Well, let me be a little more clear, in the interests of total honesty. I had always looked at them, but to that date, I had never even so much as touched another girl, other than my mother in my entire life. Girls had no interest in me, a poor pecan farmer. I didn't play sports; I didn't join any extracurricular activities that were "acceptable." My days were spent at school or working on the farm, and my nights were spent doing my homework. To be honest, I was surprised I got accepted into the university, but can only guess that it was my good test scores that did it. I had a 4.0 GPA and I got a pretty decent score on my SAT's.

So, yeah, I never had a date or a kiss. One time, I asked a girl out and she made up a flimsy excuse as to why she couldn't go with me, but she would never look at me, and I got the picture. I got it real quick. No girl is gonna go out with you, Rob.

I spent the nights of all the school dances at home. I didn't attend any of the homecoming dances, junior or senior prom. I wasn't in the year book and nobody but my parents clapped for me at my graduation. The principal didn't even look at me as he handed me my diploma, and I didn't attend any of the graduation parties. I went home and fertilized the pecan trees. I had no friends, and hardly anybody ever said a word to me all through high school, other than "excuse me" or "get out of the way."

So I went off to university figuring it'd be pretty much the same there, and I was right. I was just one of many freshmen. Nobody gave me a second glance. Nobody wished me well, nobody shook my hand. I didn't even have a roommate to talk to.

I was the quintessential outsider. I stood off in the darkness beyond the campfire, as it were. I tried striking up conversations, but people-especially girls-made quick exits and found excuses not to be anywhere near me.

It all came crashing back on me while I was lying in the hospital. There is nothing that brings on the acuity of loneliness than being all by yourself in a hospital bed, knowing nobody will come visit you or hold your hand. Once I found out my parents had died, I really was completely alone in the world. Both my parents were only children whose own parents had died some years ago, being quite old themselves. I had no aunts, no cousins, nobody at all.

I got out of the hospital feeling depressed and wanting to do nothing but crawl into a liquor bottle, except I couldn't even afford to do that.

So eventually I got that bookstore job and Amanda Pierce came in, which is where I was before I got sidetracked.

Now, you know how they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul? If that was the case, looking into Amanda's sparkling green eyes was like looking into a mansion lit up for a Christmas party. I was sitting behind the counter totaling up receipts in preparation for closing, when the door jingled and in she walked.

I looked up and fell into her eyes. It was like I'd been struck by lightning. I felt the spark jump. I must've stared at her for only a couple of seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

She had short blond hair that feathered around her ears, and those captivating green eyes. She was short and wide, just the way I liked them. I saw that huge breasts stretched out her shirt, and when she turned to get a book off the shelf, I saw her wide hips equally stretching out her blue shorts. I forgot all about the receipts and just stared.

"See something green?" she asked, startling me and smiling.

I jumped guiltily and looked away. "No, not at all." And now, even to this day, I don't know what made me say it but I blurted out: "Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?"

She raised her eyebrows but didn't look at all put out of countenance. "Sure, why not. You look right enough."

That was the start of my courtship. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't alone. We did everything together, we had a million things to talk about and we were rarely seen out of one another's sight.

I'm afraid that, like almost anyone else who hasn't had a great deal, I got rather possessive of Amanda. And we did have a few issues.

Now, being alone most of my life, I took on the habit of watching people. I think I've become quite a fairly decent amateur anthropologist as a result. Being male, most of my attention was obviously directed at women.

There isn't a woman alive, fat or thin, who is happy with her body. I don't care what she says, there is always something, and there isn't a fat girl alive who actually does like being fat. I've watched women ever since I've been able to appreciate them, and this is what I've discovered. Even a fat girl who doesn't really mind that she's fat, bows to the Thin-is-the-only-way-to-be pressure. She will diet, with greater or lesser degrees of success. She'll try to wear thin clothing, and get more depressed when she gets odd looks. Because let's face it, a dress designed for a thin woman does not look good on a fat one; they have totally different shapes. But the woman in question tries to fit in (no pun intended), and gets more depressed when she can't.

This is just an example of some of the stuff I've observed. Amanda had a number of issues related to her weight. She was used to being propositioned by men who thought fat girls were easy lays, but thankfully she had enough self-respect to avoid that type. Nevertheless, she had just about despaired of finding a man who didn't do that to her, and was extremely suspicious. I think part of that suspicion never went away, which led us to our current difficulties.

As a result of this suspicion, she wanted to go to her wedding bed a virgin. I, being totally and completely in love, had no problem with that, but I went home many a night with my cock throbbing and my balls about bursting. She never let me take off her shirt, and I had to content myself with the occasional handjob. But I was still happy. I did my best, every day, to show her that I loved her. I was understanding about her complaints about her belly and butt and thighs (remember I said there wasn't a woman alive who was happy with her body) even though I had no problem with them and told her so at every opportunity; she just never believed me. No woman on earth ever believes a man, not fully, when he tells her he loves her body. Not even after years of being together. I doted on her, and I got a little possessive.

As a result, our relationship wasn't all roses. More than once she complained I was smothering her, and I did my best to back off. But I was so terrified of losing her, I didn't want to let go. I had nobody all my life but my parents, and they died, and I was all alone for real. And then she, this incredible woman who was the meaning of life itself to me came along, and I grabbed on with all I had.

So we had a number of fights, where she told me I was controlling and not allowing her to have a life of her own, and I said I'd try to do better, and I'd promised to do my best to control my possessive nature.

Eventually I did loosen up, and by the time I graduated with my computer science degree and she graduated with her degree in human resources, we were engaged to be married and she was all smiles.

When we got married, my wedding night was every bit as magical as I thought it would be. Her big soft body just melted around me and I told her how beautiful she was. She smiled and pretended to believe me, but as I said, no woman ever really believes a man when he tells her how beautiful she is, and especially a fat woman with all those years of thin pressure behind her.

We got jobs in our fields, me at a medium sized IT services company and she at a bank managing personnel. We got a house in the suburbs and were living the American dream. I kept doing my best to prove how much I loved her, cheered with her for her career triumphs and commiserated with her over her downsides. We cried together when I found out I would be unable to father children because of an extremely low sperm count.

Everything coasted along for fifteen years, until that overheard phone conversation.

It was the cliché of all clichés. I had forgotten some of my coding manuals and so I sent an email to my boss letting him know I had to run home and grab them. It was about eleven-fifteen on a Tuesday and I hurried down to my car. Amanda had told me she wasn't feeling well, so I gave her a mug of tea and a kiss on the forehead and a promise to try and get home early to take care of her.

I hurried into my jeep and drove through the quiet streets to my house. All was as I had left it. I had a small office off the garage with a phone extension and I hurried in there, hunting through my shelf of manuals for the right one. I picked up the phone to call Jack, the other programmer on my team, to verify which manual it was I needed, but before I could dial, I heard a voice on the phone.

"I'm looking forward to burying my cock in that big beautiful ass of yours," said a man's voice, low and husky, each word sliding like an ice pick into my brain.