Amor Prohibetur Ch. 17

"There she is." Nick said.

His wife went over to look, peering out of the garage and scanning the park. She saw her sister Renata strolling along, until the woman took a seat on a bench and started texting. Renata was dressed up with a lot of jewelry and make-up. Her clothes were sexy and fit more for a nightclub than a park full of joggers.

Nick's phone went off. After consulting it, he said, "She wants to know if I'm on my way. What should I tell her?"

Valerie was still thinking things over. "Renata is baiting you. She just wants to see if you'd really mess around behind my back, so she can tell me later what a cheater you are. She won't really sleep with you."

"You already know about this, then?"

"She didn't tell me she was going to do this."

"It's possible that she wants to test me like that." Nick admitted. "At the same time, we've been married for twenty-five years and Renata only now wants to know if I'm being faithful? And she didn't tell you about this secret plan of hers? Why didn't she get one of her friends to hit on me, instead of being obvious by doing it herself?"

Nick handed his phone over.

Valerie saw that he'd opened up the chat app he'd been using to talk to Renata. As she went through the various conversations, she saw a general theme emerging. Both Nick and her sister were constantly flirting with one another. Nick would compliment Renata's looks and curves, while her sister would get into graphic detail over how she wanted to fuck him. At the end of every conversation, Renata insisted she would do all of those things if, and only if, Nick would buy her something nice. The other theme that kept popping up was that Nick shouldn't tell Valerie anything about their conversations.

"She's testing you." Valerie insisted.

"If I go and sit on that bench next to your sister, I will guarantee you that we'll be making out in five minutes."

"She won't take things that far." Valerie shook her head.

"I bet you six million dollars that she will."

Valerie gaped at her husband. Was he really that sure that Renata would spread her legs for him, the way she said she would on the phone?

"I'll go talk to her." Valerie decided. "I can tell when my sister is lying."

"Promise me you won't start up a fight with her. I don't want you to end up getting arrested because of this."

Valerie considered this. "I can't make that promise."

"Let me send her one last text. I'll tell her I'm five minutes away."

Valerie watched as Nick typed the message in.

"I can't trust my own family." Valerie admitted, twenty minutes later when Nick was driving them home.

She hadn't said anything for the entire ride. Not wanting to set her off, Nick had merely started the car and put it in motion.

"We can stop somewhere for a burger." Nick said, timidly.

"Okay. I don't feel like cooking anymore."

"Do you want to talk about this?"

"I guess." Valerie finally let her anger go. "I'm sure you saw what happened. I sat down next to Renata. She was in shock because she wasn't expecting me. I saw her face, Nick. I saw her eyes. I told her that I couldn't believe she was trying to cheat with you. Do you know what she said? She didn't try to deny it. She didn't say she was trying to see if you would cheat on me or not. Renata said she's had a thing for you for the last ten years. She was caught so off-guard that was the only thing she could think of saying."

"Wow, I wish I would have known that ten years ago."

"That's not funny!" Valerie snapped. After a few moments of thinking that over, however, she started giggling. "I can't believe you said that!"

Valerie's family kept pestering her for money, but after the incident with her sister, she didn't trust any of them anymore. In fact, there seemed to collusion going on where her sisters were pressuring Valerie's mother to pry some money away from Nick's bank account and into their hands.

Nick and his brother were talking constantly. Brochures started showing up in the mail, describing lavish resorts and exotic vacations. Nick was happy, and as long as she didn't let her family torment her, Valerie was happy too.

Valerie was scheduled to have Friday and Saturday off that week. When Friday came along, Nick woke her up early and got her into the car. He surprised her with a cheap breakfast from a fast food place, before he got on the road going south.

"Where are we going, that you had to get me up so early on my day off?" She wondered.

Nick had a folder sitting on the car's dashboard. He handed it to her. "I want you to go through this."

Valerie flipped through it. She found a brochure for what looked like a resort, a few pages describing houses for sale, and some kind of home owner's association paper with a lot of rules on it. The addresses on all of the paperwork were from Rosarito, Mexico. "What is all this stuff?"

"We're just looking at some houses."

"Why?"

"Because we can afford them now."

"In Rosarito? I don't want to live in Rosarito!"

"I know, I know. We have a mansion in San Diego we just can't live without."

Their house was falling apart it was so old, Valerie knew. At the same time, property values in San Diego were so incredibly steep even that rundown place was worth nearly half a million dollars.

"Are you seriously thinking about moving?" She asked.

Nick shrugged back. "Maybe."

Valerie went through the paperwork again, this time with a more careful eye. Two of the house listings were from a place called The Seagulls in Spanish. Rosarito was only ten miles south of the US border, but with traffic the way it was, she could expect a travel time of about an hour every single morning just to get across the border. That was entirely unacceptable. Still, because it was her day off and they were doing something different, she decided to humor her husband's whims.

"These rules are really strict." Valerie noticed. "No loud noise between ten pm and eight am. No congregating outside during those times either. No hanging towels on railings and no umbrellas blocking the view of the beach. No pets or else the homeowner gets evicted. They will call the Municipal Police on any unauthorized guests? Are these people crazy?"

"It's an exclusive community." Nick replied. "Who wants to see dog shit on the sidewalk, anyway?"

Valerie had set into her mind that she wasn't going to like any of the houses they saw. She would just treat that day as if it were a trip to a museum. When Nick got past the guard post at the main gate, she was left gawking at all the beautiful houses. These were the kinds of houses she saw in La Jolla, where all the rich people lived. They were two and three stories high, built in Spanish Missionary architecture with many arches and red ceramic tiles on the roofs. Being a humble person, she couldn't even imagine living in that kind of ritzy neighborhood.

The first house on the listings took her breath away. The houses were all stuck together, which she didn't like, as the patios on either side were close enough that she could spit on the neighbors if she wanted to. The bottom level was a two-car garage with wooden arched doors and black hinges. Stairs of red brick and a black railing led up to the first floor, which had a large patio over the garage. The couple was standing on the patio and peering in through the floor to ceiling windows when the real estate agent arrived.

Valerie could hardly believe she was going into that house. The living room was huge, maybe three times larger than the one back home! It had couches and padded sitting chairs and an adobe fireplace. She drooled over the full kitchen, with silvery appliances, a mini-bar with bright red tiles and seating for four. She only had a glance at the large dining room with seating for eight, and the smaller, enclosed back patio, before the agent whisked them upstairs to show them the bedrooms.

The second floor had two large bedrooms, a wide patio and a spectacular view of the ocean. The master bedroom was on the top floor, with a simple, antique writing desk, a walk-in closet that could fit a car in it, and a bathroom so extravagant it rivaled those in the luxury suites of the hotel she worked at. Large windows with arced tops took up an entire wall and the edges of two others. The view was as magnificent as the one on the floor below.

"Do you mind if my wife and I talk things over?" Nick asked the agent, who promptly got on her phone and went downstairs. The happy man went over to put his hand on Valerie's shoulder, as she stood by the western windows and gazed out over the ocean. He chuckled. "Three floors, three full bathrooms and a two car garage. That beats one floor, two bedrooms, a garage full of garbage and a second car parked on the street."

Valerie checked the listings again. "This house costs four hundred thousand dollars. That's cheaper than the house we have in San Diego."

"That's right." Nick nodded. "The rules are a little different in Mexico. We can only own this house for ninety-nine years."

"I never understood that." She shook her head.

"It's a law that prevents foreigners from coming in and buying up all the real estate." Nick explained. "After ninety-nine years, the property goes back to the people who own the land."

"I don't like that."

"Think about it." Nick said. "Are we really going to be around ninety-nine years from now? Sooner or later, we'll be gone. This house will be paid off and our kids can live here and save their money until the contract runs out."

Nick hugged his wife from behind, kissing her on the cheek. "I wanted to look at this house first, because I think it's the best one."

"What about all this furniture?"

"It is recommended furniture." Nick answered. "The community prefers for us to keep the theme of the neighborhood going. If we like it, we can add it to the price of the house. They've got a catalog of everything they offer. We can take a look at the other stuff, if you want to."

"They want to control everything here, don't they?" Valerie realized. "Inside the house and out. I read those rules, Nick. They only allow motorcycles to go from the house to the front gate and that's all! They're not allowed to joyride here."

"That's to keep people from driving motorcycles all over the neighborhood and pissing everybody else off. You're not thinking about buying a motorcycle, are you?"

"No!"

"Then don't worry about it. As far as the furniture goes, are you seriously telling me that what we have at home is better than what this house has?"

Valerie pulled away from her husband to look over the entire room. She saw a lamp and stand on every corner, a fireplace just like the one on the first floor, a ceiling fan, wooden beams on the ceiling, artwork on the walls and a queen size bed that was half-covered with pillows and rolls.

She remembered how Nick had been in shock when he'd first told her about winning the lottery. That's how she felt now.

"This is like paradise for us, isn't it?" She asked.

Nick took her in his arms again, pressing his lips against hers.

They were still kissing when the real estate lady returned and gave them a polite cough.

Thanks to the large amount of money sitting in the bank, the couple was able to make the big move in just over two weeks. They didn't take any of their furniture, as they selected a package from among those offered by the community. The package included beds, couches and everything else, and was valued at over twelve thousand dollars. The price of the package was spread out and financed over a period of five years, but both Nick and Val meant to pay it off quickly.

Over the years, they'd collected a tremendous amount of material goods, such as clothes and music CDs and books and other junk. The husband and wife went through all of their things with a fine-toothed comb. They tossed out their ratty clothes, the CDs they no longer listened to, and other things that were more clutter than useful. A full one-third of all the items they'd accumulated over the years would be sold off or given away, and that would include Nick's old car. They only needed a small rental truck to carry the things they wanted to keep. That truck would have to sit in the driveway for a few nights, while they submitted paperwork asking for official permission to drive it into Mexico.

One evening, Val was in the 'old' house sorting out her clothes. She had put every pair of panties she owned on top of her bed, hoping to dwindle the number down to only a dozen or so. Val was a little excited about that, as Nick had promised to buy her new lingerie, expensive lingerie mind you, from a specialty shop at the mall. Val didn't think they were poor before winning the lottery, not exactly, and she liked going into that lingerie shop just to have a look every so often, even if she thought the prices for much of the merchandise were outrageous.

Nick stepped into the bedroom to watch what she was doing.

"You can help me." Val said, torn over which panties to get rid of, as she liked nearly every single pair. "You choose your favorites and I'll choose mine. That will help me figure out which ones I should get rid of. I think I want to keep about half if you're really going to buy me new ones."

"I didn't tell you to toss any good ones out." Nick explained. "Just get rid of all the ones that are loose and ratty. You like wearing them until they disintegrate into fibers, the same way you wear your bras."

"No I don't!"

"The panties are fine if they fit you good." He said. "As a matter of fact, why don't you try them on in front of me. I'll tell you which ones are too loose. Those are the ones that will fall down around your ankles without any help from me."

Val stripped and began trying her garments on, one at a time, doing a turn and showing off her slender body to her husband. Knowing him as she did, she knew that after about ten minutes he'd be all over her, and he was. Nick pushed her on the bed, on top of all her underwear, and he got behind her and made their bodies slap together. As Val let Nick do this to her, she cried out and gripped the panties and bed covers. When they were done, they were lying there caressing and kissing. In the back of her mind, Val knew this was probably the last time they'd sleep together in the old house.

"What do you think about Matt moving in with us?" Nick asked, as the couple was organizing their new furniture in the new house a couple of days later.

"Does he want to?" Val wondered, before she pointed at a corner of their new bottom floor. "Should we have a big plant there, or a chair with a lamp next to it for reading?"

Nick scrutinized the corner. "That spot is pretty close to the windows, so we don't really need a lamp during the day. How about a medium plant and a chair? We can put the big plants in the back patio to break up the color of the walls."

"That's a good idea." Val nodded. "What were you saying about your brother?"

"He's been by a couple of times and he says he loves this place." Nick chuckled. "Almost as much as we do. Anyway, he's got his expensive apartment that he lives in, which he said he's tired of. He's got money in the bank, so we don't have to worry about him mooching on us like your family does..."

"Stop it, Nick!"

His wife would always become defensive whenever Nick brought up their faults, so he tactfully kept the discussion focused on his brother. "Here is what I'm saying. Matt would be happy here. He said he's tired of his job, and he thinks he has a good chance of landing some kind of financial job locally, because he knows how to manage money and because he's bilingual."

"I don't want him bringing women into this house." Val said, defiantly.

"Why not?" Nick shrugged. "He's a single guy, and you know how much he got screwed over by his ex. He had to work hard for everything he's earned, and then that woman got to take half when she was the one that cheated on him? Ever since he got divorced, my brother has been saving money to retire somewhere like South America. This place fits in fine with his plans."

"Once he signs the community rule sheet, he's going to have to sign mine!"

"If it doesn't work out, we'll ask him to leave." Nick conceded. "Are you okay with my brother living here?"

"No wild parties..."

"Matt doesn't party. You know that."

"He drinks a lot."

"That's because he's lonely. The women he dates are always after his wallet and not him. Maybe he can meet a local woman who doesn't want to be the next star on Orange County Housewives."

Val thought back to their dealings with Matt over the last month. It was true; he had never asked Nick for a penny while helping her husband manage his lottery winnings. At the same time, Val's relatives were still hounding her for a big payday.

"You get along with him, right?" Nick asked.

"Better than with my sisters." Val confirmed. "What about the old house? What are we going to do with the money we get after we sell it?"

"Who is asking, you or your mother?" Nick wondered.

"I think we should do something to help my family."

"We'll work something out." Nick decided. "You can give me your ideas and I'll give you mine. We'll talk it over with Matt to make sure we don't get screwed over some way, like if we end up co-signing on a car loan. Does that sound fair to you?"

The wife nodded back.

"About that third bedroom," Nick mentioned. "What if I ask your sister Renata to come and spend the night, you know, once or twice a month? I can leave a trail of dollar bills on the floor. She can follow the trail into the third bedroom, where I'll be waiting for her like I did that day at the park..."

"Nick!" Val shouted at him. "You'd better cut that out or I'm going to scratch you!"

Nick started laughing, which infuriated her even more. Part of Val's anger was the result of her husband's teasing, ever since that ugly episode with Renata took place. At the same time, Val was angry because she suspected the insinuation was true. Renata was married with four grown children, yet she had shown every sign of being willing to disrupt Val's marriage. Her sister was a gold-digger!

"What's Renata's phone number again?" Nick joked.

"Nick!"

Twenty years of equity came their way once the old house was sold. That made them rich all over again, in Val's estimation.

By that time, Matt was living in Rosarito with them and getting used to not having to head off for work. Nick and his brother would lounge around all day and talk about money. Meanwhile, Val would drive nearly an hour and a half for a six-hour shift, and then drive an hour and a half to get back home.

On her next day off after the old house was sold, Val joined the men of the house for a discussion on what they would do with the proceeds. She felt embarrassed as she set down several pages her relatives had given her. "Here is what they think we should pay for."

Nick and Matt both stared down at the stack of papers, before Val's husband picked up a few and started rifling through them.

"Every one of your relatives has a laundry list over a page long." Nick noticed, with some annoyance.

Matt laughed. "You're really Saint Nick, aren't you? I guess Christmas is coming early this year for a lot of people!"

"Kiss my ass." Nick grumbled. "Look at this shit! I've got a nephew who wants a Playstation, because the X-Box he already has doesn't make his favorite game."

"Ooooh, will you look at this?" Matt noted. "Renata wants a boob job."

"She's already got boobs." Nick replied. "Is she trying to become the next Dolly Parton now?"

"You are the sugar daddy to an entire family now." Matt teased.

"Don't talk about my relatives that way!" Val huffed at both men.

Nick held up wish lists in both hands. "Did you read any of these?"

Val sighed. "Yes. I read everything."