Ah Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of ... well ... sex actually. Or baseball, but that is a completely different story.
Washington seasons suffer from "mood swings," especially when it comes to the temperature during the spring and fall. This spring was no different. Yesterday, the weather gurus had been calling for a high in the mid to upper sixties, yet it had struggled to get to fifty. Today, they were calling for highs in the upper sixties to lower seventies, so it was no surprise when my alarm went off at four o'clock in the morning that the temperature outside my window was striving valiantly towards twenty. In other words, I would be dressing for a mid-winter morning and coming home, dressed for a mid-winter morning in a mid-spring heat, if everything went according to plan. I probably wanted to wear layers on the off chance that it actually made it close to the predicted highs. That way I would be able to pull off the sweat-soaked shirts as I went through the day.
To say that spring had come upon me unaware would be true. It had been a funky winter. Originally predicted to be warmer and dryer than normal, it had been colder and wetter and thus, darker. It was the type of winter where the sun never really shone. Instead, when it did, it was watery at best on those rare days when it was not completely hidden by clouds or obscured by various forms of precipitation falling from the sky. I work in a windowless bunker, arriving and going home pretty much in the dark with only a brief outdoor excursion at lunch, which this winter had been few. As a result, you can understand why I was suddenly surprised that spring had arrived. The calendar may have said that Opening Day was only a week away, but it still felt and looked a lot like winter, the snow only having melted entirely the week before, and the cherry blossoms still several weeks away.
I was already in a foul mood when I woke up. I figured I might as well have coffee until the doctor said I could not have it anymore. Damn kidney stones had sidelined me for a couple of weeks and then I got sick and then Jean got sick, so I was sexually frustrated as well. It had been almost a month and I was sure that was not helping improve my mood as I climbed onto the train in the cold dark air, fixed my headphones, turned on the music, tipped my hat over my eyes and went back to sleep for another hour.
I had finished my coffee and scone while reading the headlines and had started to investigate what gremlin had decided to take over my network this morning. Wireshark was spitting out packets as fast as they hit the router's interface and I still was no closer to figuring out what exactly was wrong when an instant message pinged in.
sexyjean (10:11:03): Hi. What are you doing for lunch?
ve (10:11:15): Powerbar and a coke, why?
sexyjean (10:12:01): Want a better offer? :-)
ve (10:12:13): Sure, what are you offering?
sexyjean (10:12:55): Picnic on the Mall.
ve (10:13:12): Sure 12:30. Wait, aren't you working?
sexyjean (10:13:30):Nope. Better offer :-)
ve (10:14:12)?
sexyjean (10:14:45): Surprise. See you soon. Love you!
And with that she logged out, leaving me to ponder the universe and the frustrations of network traffic as I noticed a DHCP call response followed by a "cannot find network" error. Well, at least it was a clue to figuring out what was wrong with the network. I had long since given up trying to figure out women.
I spent the morning reconfiguring gateway addresses and ping testing and was beginning to get things working when my phone chirped with an SMS message.
"I'm here," was all it said. She was a little early for my normal lunch hour but I was not going to complain. I was hungry and I was at the point where I could take a break for a bit.
"I am at lunch," I yelled to the office in general as I grabbed my coat and hit the head before ascending to street level. I saw Jean through the doors as I walked out of the building and hugged her close and gave her a kiss.
"Do I get one of those too?"
The voice stopped me cold. It was one of those moments where you know who it is, but you cannot place it immediately because it is out of context. I had to let go of Jean and turn around to make sure I was really hearing who I thought I was.
"Katherine?!" I exclaimed, seeing her standing just behind me. I am sure I had a goofy grin on my face as I scooped her into my arms and hugged and kissed her soundly. It had been far too long since I had done that and I had really missed her physical presence. Cyber kisses do not have the same impact.
"Wait a minute, this is a set up," I said, scooping Jean up in one arm and not letting go of Katherine. "The whole story of her working odd hours this week was just a smoke screen." Jean was smiling as much as I was and Katherine just put her head on my chest.
"Yup. We cooked it up last weekend. I told you, I got a better offer," Jean said, handing me the picnic bag and turning us towards the White House.
It had warmed up significantly while I had been downstairs in my cave. I took off my jacket and slung the picnic bag onto my shoulder and took a moment to actually look at the ladies. Jean and Katherine are about the same size. Five-four, lovely breasts, round asses. Jean was wearing a white satin blouse with a broad collar and buttons, the top three of which seemed to be undone, showing off the top of her lightest, filmiest bra, which barely contains her breasts. She was wearing an interestingly checked black and white skirt that I did not recall her owning. In fact, I did not recall her owning the blouse either. It was too European for her to have bought it in the US. What I found really unusual was she was wearing stockings and dress shoes. While my mind internalized her outfit, my eyes were already looking at Katherine, who seemed to be wearing stylistically the same thing, a satin blouse in a very pretty blue and a black skirt, also with hose and dress shoes. They were her normal three inch heels which actually made her taller than Jean, but she wore heels more often than Jean did. She too had the top three buttons undone and her breasts were held close in a red bra that made them look wonderful.
I offered the ladies my arms and, with Jean on my left and Katherine on my right, we crossed the street and made our way towards the Mall.