She didn't know what he did really. He would be gone for months and then reappear for a day or a night. This time he had been gone for almost two years.
When she moved from San Francisco to Ft. Worth, she figured he would never reappear, but she hoped. Unanswered e-mail messages were like little trail markers she left for him to follow. Mostly just family and business news, but a few were spicy and left with the promise of the scent of a bitch in heat. Some of those were answered, but not to her satisfaction. The last e-mail she left in his mailbox was to let him know that her husband might be out of town for a few days.
The phone rang just as the sun was rising. On the second ring she remembered that her husband had left the day before and lifted the handset. It was his voice.
"I'm at the airport. Come get me."
"I'll be at the curb in an hour."
She moved quickly from the bed to the shower, towel dried her cropped hair, pulled on a long loose fitting one-piece dress, sandals with low heels, bare legs, lace panties and bra, and out to the Lincoln. At seven she saw him standing on the curb holding a small black gym bag.
As soon as she drew up to the curb, he moved lightly into the front seat. He was surprisingly agile for a man over 60. With a full head of hair and strong jaw, he had the look of a serious man—perhaps dangerous.
"I need a shower and a shave." She looked at him intensely waiting for a greeting perhaps a kiss. She sensed his odor more in her abdomen than in her nose. He smelled pungent, but not dirty. She wanted him to move close to her. He stared out the front window waiting. When he looked at her to question why they were not moving, her eyes were wide and wet. He pulled her to him and kissed her gently. His beard scratched her lips.
She knew better than to ask where he had come from or what he had been doing. He had never answered those questions before. "I want you to see our new house. You can shower there."
"I'm a little uncomfortable with that, but you can take me there to clean up and look around, but I won't fuck you in your husband's bed."
*****
When he came out of the shower, she had some toast and coffee for him. She showed him around the large ranch style house. She thought he should at least pretend to be interested in the house, but he was intently watching her—or rather the movements her body made under the loose folds of her dress. That is what she really wanted, of course.
"Is this the sofa you were on the night we had phone sex?"
"No. We gave that one away when we moved."
"Is that where you'll be when we do it again?"
She stopped to look at the sofa, then turned in the direction of the bedroom, and said, "Yeah. Probably."
He walked to the patio door and looked out on the pool. "I want to watch you swim in the pool."