They dated only briefly in high school. He took her to the Senior Prom. That was when he first kissed her.
She was much shorter than him, her head nestling on his chest, her arms reaching up to his shoulders.
It was a slow dance. He bent his head toward hers. She raised her face and offered her small mouth.
For him it was a moment frozen in time - one of two moments that evening 25 years ago.
Her lips were so soft. Her mouth small and tight, wet and warm. She offered her tongue to him. He sucked it gently then, with a slight moan, she withdrew hers and sucked his into her mouth.
He felt light headed.
Slowly they disengaged. She rested her head against his chest again and hugged him closer to her body.
She felt so wonderful.
After dinner, in his lust, he took her to a park and there plied all his desparate charm on her to makeout with him.
No.
He had been to eager.
She took the "high ground"; refused to compromise her virginity.
Even petting was a no-no.
He was frustrated.
She had such an elegant neck and wonderful mouth.
In the early morning hours when he took her home, she dashed into the house and asked him to wait by the door. She came back several minutes later in only her slip.
She commiserated with his frustration, hugged him to her breast (she was standing on the step above him) and then kissed him on the cheek.
That was the second moment frozen in time.
She allowed him a feel.
Her breasts, though small were high on her chest and nicely firm. The skin of her chest above her slip was so soft, her perfume was so wonderful.
He felt light headed again.
The prom was on a Saturday night. They were supposed to sit together in church on Sunday morning but he begged off: picnic for the football team.
The summer came and they saw very little of each other and exchanged even fewer words. There were none of the wonderful feelings he felt for her though she still had feelings for him.
It was clearly his stupid loss.
He felt there was something wrong with her. She was to "clingy," to eager to please - though not eager enough to give herself to him.
She would have married him had he asked. She would have cooked and cleaned and been the dutiful wife - and as he surmised to late, she would have been the proverbial "whore" in the bedroom.
He left town for college.
She stayed. It was her senior year of high school but she almost immediately found an older man who physically and mentally abused her. They married, against her family's wishes, immediately after she graduated.
She almost immediately got pregnant and had a child.
Then a second child.
Then Family Services took the children away.
He learned she was a mess. Booze, drugs, prostitution.
Her older sister told him that she would be a good wife but she needed a good man, a nice man "to give her purpose."
Maybe that's what spooked him, her co-dependency.
She was with an asshole; a drunk, stupid, beast. Before leaving her alone and homeless, he whored her out to get money for his essentials in life: booze, cigarettes and drugs.
But she stayed with this asshole, till he left her.
That was 20 years ago. He lost touch with her family. He had nearly forgotten about her except for the times that he remembered that prom night.
She spooked him but she also attracted him like a magnet. Like a moth to a flame. There was something about her that he always wanted. What he wasn't quite certain. He knew though, down deep, primally deep, he wanted to possess her.
And he realized she would probably allow herself to be possessed.
It was his stupid loss.
* * * * *
He was entertaining a client at a hotel bar when he thought he spotted her going by the bar toward one of the meeting rooms.
It was only a fleeting glance but he could swear it was her.
His meeting and drinks with the client ended about a half hour later. He left the bar and headed for the conference center of the hotel wondering if he'd really seen her and if he had, then what.
The event board in the lobby announced the 25th high school reunion of her school. It was her. And he felt his desires stir almost with a violence.
But...
At the same time there was a wave of guilt.
A tsunami of guilt.
He blamed himself for having effectively dumped her. And as a result, his guilt told him, she ended up on the skids, abused and alone.
He thought her sister may have blamed him, maybe the whole family blamed him, for her bad life. He could have been "the good man that gave her purpose." And instead he was just a jerk who tried to get lucky on prom night, not looking any farther ahead in time than that night.
He looked at the door to the room where the reunion was being held. They had gone to separate schools, he didn't know anyone milling around the door.
He frowned in disgust with himself and disappointment and went back to the bar.
"You didn't smoke when we were dating." Her voice had deepened slightly with age but it was still delicate, lilting.
He squinted through the cloud of smoke he'd just blown out to look at her. She sat beside him.
"You do remember me, don't you?"
"I've never forgotten."
"You have a funny way of showing it," she said with a hint of rebuke but with a smile.
"I, uh..."
"Really," she laughed quietly, "you don't need to explain. I presume you heard I was pretty messed up after high school. And if you haven't, I was.
"Eloped with some asshole right after graduation. He was 25 and I was almost 18. I wanted to please him so much. I would have done anything for him - and I did for the 36 months we were married. To the point that the cops busted him for pushing drugs and pimping me. I was so filthy and malnourished when they arrested us that social services had the prosecutor drop charges against me and got me into a rehab program.
"A year's worth of rehab, four years worth of college - I'm a nurse now - and still seeing a shrink; 25 years later and I'm pretty good now.
"How about you? Wife, kids?"
He sat and looked at her, perhaps stared. She had some lines in her face from the wear and tear of her life but she was still quite beautiful, still desirous.
"Uh, a wife, for a while. No kids. I'm in commercial real estate and mortgage banking."
She raised her eyebrows, smiled. "Wow."
