It had been a long, hard day, and I was, quite frankly, deep in the dumps as I drove home that Thursday night.
I knew the price of success was days like this, but I was on the verge of tears, from exhaustion and loneliness.
Let me back up a second, and tell you a little about myself and my situation.
My name is Anne and I just turned 45 a couple of months ago. Physically, I am about as average as can be. I'm 5-6 and slender, thanks to a regular exercise routine at a local health club. My breasts are average, my hips are narrow and my butt is nice, but nothing outstanding. I've always been told I'm cute, with blue eyes and blonde hair that I wear just to my shoulders.
At the present time, I am an assistant district attorney in a medium-sized city. I love the law, and I love being a prosecutor, but sometimes the workload and some of the cases I have to deal with can be wearing. This was one of those times. We were in the middle of a difficult murder case in which nothing was cut-and-dried. I won't go into the gory details, but a woman had shot her husband, and she was claiming self-defense after a long history of abuse. I was having a hard time making a case for first-degree murder, even though it had clearly been a premeditated attack, largely because the S.O.B. had, in fact, spent 20 years terrorizing this woman.
We were putting in long hours, so I wasn't getting enough rest. Emotionally, I was conflicted over this case. And to top it off, my husband was overseas on an extended business trip. He owns a very successful agricultural supply company, and he was in the midst of difficult negotiations over a new line of products from a Russian manufacturer. He had been gone for three weeks, and wasn't due back for another week.
I honestly didn't know if I could stand another week without him. I needed his moral support right then, and he wasn't there for me. I knew how important this trip was to the business, and I certainly understood the necessity of him being gone. But, still, I was feeling blue and a little resentful that he wasn't there when I needed him.
You have to understand, Bill is the rock of my life. I'm not bragging when I say that we have one of the great love stories. We met when we were in college, at a sorority mixer. The irony is that we went to different colleges that are fierce rivals, but my sorority and the chapter of his fraternity at my college were sort of a pair. We were both a little out of the social mainstream, in that we were more interested in a well-rounded education, not to mention that we threw the best parties on campus.
OK, I'll admit it, we were the hellraisers, and the DGs and Chi-Os of the world looked down their noses at us, which we considered a mark of distinction. But we studied as hard as we partied, and our overall GPA was always - always - the best of any sorority on campus. That's because we weren't as concerned with getting the richest, best-looking, most well-connected girls as we were in getting smart girls who were independent thinkers and who were fun to be around.
Anyway, I met Bill before the big game between our schools my junior year. He had grown up on a farm, so he was quite well-built from years of hard work, but he was a business major. I have to say, in my case, that it was love at first sight. I don't know what it was about him, because there is nothing about him that jumps right out at you. He's not especially handsome; he's not ugly, just not somebody who takes your breath away, and he's not a big guy, standing maybe 5-10, if that. And he wasn't particularly outgoing, not somebody who attracts attention.
But he did have a very quiet sense of self-assurance that I picked up on right away. He knew who he was, what he was, and what he wanted to be. We clicked right away, and within a month, we were burning up the 100 miles between our campuses, and we were married right after graduation.
One of the things that has always endeared him to me was the way he supported me through law school. He worked as a salesman, and I mean he worked his butt off, to make the money to put me through school. It never occured to him to be jealous over the fact that when I finished, my social standing as a lawyer would be a good bit higher than his, at least initially. We were partners, and that's the way it's been ever since. Along the way, we had a son and a daughter, both of whom are in college at present. We get a big kick out of the fact that our son is going to his father's university and our daughter is going to mine.
So I was feeling desperately blue that night. I had worked late, not leaving the office until after 7 o'clock. I was tired, lonely and feeling miserable. As I drove home, in a cold late-spring drizzle, I almost decided to stop at a restaurant to eat dinner and have a couple of drinks to unwind, but I was really too down. Boy, am I glad I didn't.
I pulled my car into the garage, got my briefcase and headed to the door, when I got the first surprise. Our alarm system had been deactivated. I was immediately suspicious, and a little fearful. As an ADA, I've had my life threatened before, and I was absolutely certain that I had put the alarm on when I left that morning.
I opened the door warily, and was greeted by the aroma of something good cooking in the oven. I could also detect the smell of wood burning in the fireplace. I tried to still my beating heart, not yet willing to accept what I suspected. The kitchen was empty, however, so I crept through the house to the den, and there, standing by the fireplace, a glass of wine in his hand, was my beloved husband.
I squealed in delight, and of course, he quickly put the wine glass down, and we hugged and kissed deeply. This was a surprise beyond anything I could have expected. In fact, I was crying as a result. My Bill was home, and just at the moment when I'd needed him most.
When we finally pried ourselves apart, he explained that he had decided he needed a break from dealing with the Russians, and he hadn't told me he was coming home, because he wanted to surprise me. He'd have to go back in a few days, but he was home now, and that was all that mattered.
I could feel myself getting wet between my legs as we talked. It had been three weeks since I'd had sex, and I was in dire need. I don't generally masturbate when Bill is gone, preferring to save up my lust for when he returns, but I had been vaguely considering it during my ride home, that's how bad I'd been feeling.
We were both feeling the nervous jitteries that we always get when we haven't had sex in awhile and we know we're going to be doing it soon.
But first we had a delightful candlelight dinner, and we talked about what had been going on the previous three weeks. This has always been one of our rituals at dinner, telling each other about our days. Truthfully, I really couldn't care less about the latest line of tractors, and I know he gets bored hearing about all of the miscreants I deal with on a daily basis. But it's a way of purging ourselves of the burdens of our work, and it's a matter of love and respect that we listen to each other as if the other's concerns are the most important things in each other's lives.
