As a college student I met a guy from Latin America who was in his graduate program. Tall dark and handsome. I was overwhelmed by him and on the second date he had me over to his place and he had sex with me. It was quick, and I felt very bad afterwards, I wanted to go home but he kept me there and told me he would take me home in the morning. It was the first time I actually slept with a guy. In the morning he had morning sex, to get his day started.

I learned that to be the girlfriend I had to accept certain things. When he was thru listening to me would say 'ok' and slice the air with his hand, which meant shut up. When he wanted something and I had not done it I got the finger in my face, with a 'you know that is what I like', or 'you know I don't want you to do that'. If I resisted I got the two hands in front of my face with 'enough'. The best thing to do was not do what he didn't like, to do what he did like, and not argue or refuse. Sex was every time he got the chance. And not always romantic, sometimes we only had time for a quick fuck bent over, but either way he got his dick in me. That way I was his girlfriend.

For his graduation his parents and two of his sisters came up. His parents are distinguished doctors and his sisters were still in high school. In the morning at his apartment, that night I did not spend the night there, but that morning I got into a conversation with his fourteen year old sister. Smart, and worldly for a fourteen year old. But when we got to the part of how he demanded that I do what he wanted her answer was along the lines that he was a man and I wasn't. She emphasized, 'he is the man', it is your job to be the woman. That's what American women don't understand.

Through the ceremony I sat with his parents and his two sisters. So well dressed, so poised, I couldn't believe that they were all so passive. It was so hard on me, it made the relationship difficult because I ended up having to back down all the time.

He asked me to marry him. I said yes, but inside I wasn't sure. I knew that I had a good chance of having to move to his country where he would work in the family business. But I didn't ask, I just said yes. I got engaged while his parents were there, and I sat in the room while his parents spoke to the other siblings and their siblings and friends announcing his intentions to come home with a wife. The wedding had to be quick, he would leave and come back for the ceremony, but first I needed to go and meet his extended family. Approval was still necessary.

His sister is an Ophthalmologist. Her husband is a general surgeon. We went to their house for a breakfast reception. She was all over the place, serving people, and especially serving her husband. My soon to be husband told me that it didn't look good if the wife doesn't serve the husband, so watch how his sister looked after him.

Later that day I found myself in a sitting room with all three of his sisters. The fourteen year old, the seventeen year old who I had not really spoken to and his eldest sister who is the doctor. I asked them if I would fit in. What did they think of their brother marrying a girl from Nebraska, who's only claim to fame was being a junior high cheerleader. The fourteen year old said 'your pretty' and you will have pretty babies. The doctor told me to relax, things were different that in the States, you just had to learn how to be the wife of a man like him. American men were used to doing for themselves, but in their society it was a pleasure to serve their men. To show them they were special. Here, you had to be a woman, all day and to let the men do what the men do. Don't interfere and everything was going to be all right.

In spite of it all I got married and moved to his hometown, he took the job of running their automobile dealership business, I took the job of being his wife and having kids. As his sister told me, I had pretty babies. I learned Spanish, and get along with my sister's in law, especially the youngest who is now in college. Unlike me she will return as virgin as when she left, there is not much acceptance in their family of a girl getting married who is not a virgin. And she would never think of having sex before marriage. Even so, I counseled her about birth control and that boys in the US expected the girls to have sex. I gave her a box of condoms just in case, and told her to get on birth control at the university medical clinic. She would just be another one of the thousands of girls on birth control.

I don't get the correction gestures very often, I do get the shut up signal a lot. I need to say what I need to say, and his enough gesture, or his sister's looks don't stop me. He married an American girl, he got his pretty babies, I've fulfilled that part of the bargain. Now he is learning to accommodate his wife. I am not his daughter, I am his wife.