I had to drive my wife to the airport Sunday evening. It wasn't high on my list of ways to end the weekend. I'd been pretty stressed out at work the last few weeks. The last thing I wanted was to give up Sunday with my wife.
Erin had a flight to Detroit where she was going for several days of meetings with a client. She was meeting a colleague, one of her firm's partners, Danielle, at the airport. They'd go to Detroit together. Danielle would drop Erin at the Port Chester train station when they returned.
Erin turned heads. Even in the conservative business suits she wore to work. Her six-foot-one inch height alone made her stand out. Her face could light up any room with a smile. A slender, athletic frame with the right curves, honey brown hair streaked with natural blonde highlights, sapphire-blue eyes and legs so long they seemed like they never ended attracted surreptitious glances from both men and women. Erin had trouble finding pants because she needed a thirty-seven-inch inseam. At six-foot-four, I only needed a thirty-four-inch inseam. I loved those long legs. Especially when they were wrapped around me while we were making love.
Erin and I spent weekends together. Sometimes at home. If the weather and circumstances allowed, we'd spend the weekend on our sailboat. We'd cook breakfast together. If we were home and the weather was nice, I'd pipe the music out to the deck so we could listen while we enjoyed the backyard and the pool. Or the hot tub hidden behind a trellis covered with English ivy.
My wife's sex drive went into overdrive on weekends, especially Sundays. I'm unsure why. She was often interested in sex on other nights. And some mornings. But Sundays, she was nearly insatiable. Maybe it was her way to decompress from her work week. We were both in our late twenties. Both in high-pressure careers.
Erin was a corporate attorney at a prestigious Wall Street law firm. She became a senior associate so quickly it pissed off associates with more time with the firm and more experience. But less talent. She was on track to become the youngest junior partner in the history of the firm. I managed the number crunchers for a hedge fund. My team's work was critical, affecting decisions for investments that could yield hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Or cause inconceivable losses if our calculations led fund managers to make the wrong decision.
We'd enjoy numerous sessions of lovemaking throughout the weekend. If we were on the sailboat, we'd find an isolated area in a cove and drop anchor. At home after a nice evening meal, a couple glasses of wine, and heated caressing, petting, and teasing throughout the evening, we'd end up in bed early for a marathon session, often not falling asleep until after midnight. Exhausted, sated, and relaxed.
Erin's flight left at noon. All the later flights were sold out, as were the early Monday morning flights. The trip had come up late in the week. LaGuardia Airport was over two hours away. If there was no traffic. We had to be on the road early. Erin had been preoccupied with work all weekend. I understood but I was not happy.
I pulled up to drop my wife at her airline's terminal. I got out and unloaded her bag. She gave me a hug and kiss appropriate for public spaces and said goodbye. I stood and watched her until she disappeared in the crowd, feeling a bit bummed. I got in the car and drove off before the cop monitoring the drop-off area told me to move it.
Less than an hour later, my cell phone rang through the car's Bluetooth. Erin's number displayed on the screen. I answered, wondering if she left something in the car.
'Hi, babe. What's up? Leave something in the car?' I asked.
'No, I've got everything. Where are you?' she asked.
'Headed home, maybe halfway to the Whitestone.' I told her, adding, 'Already missing you.'
'You're sweet. Can you swing back to the airport before you go home? Abby just called. She's in Philly, boarding for LaGuardia. She should land about the time you get back to the airport. She's on an American flight.'
'Did you know she was coming?' I asked.
'Not until just before I called you.'
I'd never met Erin's best friend Abigail, Abby to her friends. She was a climatologist on a research sabbatical from Columbia and had been working in the South American rainforest for the last three years. Most of her time was spent in remote areas with limited access to the outside world. When Erin and I were planning our wedding, we were unable to reach her. We didn't have a big wedding. But Erin badly wanted Abby to be there. Abby learned about our marriage after the fact. To the best of my knowledge, she didn't know what I looked like. Photos I'd seen of her were at least five years old.
'Abby doesn't know me. It might be tough to find her.'
'I sent her the photo of you and your father at Yankee Stadium last spring when they played the Red Sox and your cell number.' Erin told me. 'She sent me a selfie. I'll send it, her cell number and her flight number when I get off the phone.' Erin told me.
'Where am I taking her?' I asked. I knew Abby had given up her apartment before she left. Her personal belongings were in storage somewhere.
'She'll be staying with us for now.'
'She's not staying with her parents?'
'No, they live in Wellfleet, now. She can't commute to NYC from the Cape. I'm sure the university expects her to be available for teaching assignments when the semester starts in September.'
This presented a problem. We lived in a two-bedroom house. The extra bedroom had been converted to an exercise room and home office. There was no bed in it and no room for one. There was a large space above our garage. But it was unfinished until we figured out what we wanted to do with it. Our sofa wasn't a sleeper. It was comfortable for sitting but it was terrible for sleeping. I'd made the mistake of falling asleep on it a few times. It sucked as a bed. I felt like I'd been used as a tackling dummy when I woke up.
'She's not going to like the sofa.' I said. 'And I can't sleep on it. You know what it did to me.'
Erin didn't say anything for a moment. What she said next was a shock. 'She can sleep with you. We'll figure something out when I get back.' She told me.
'You're yanking my chain. What's Abby going to think about those arrangements?' I asked.
I could hear the amusement in Erin's voice when she responded. I could almost see her smiling. 'We've already talked about it. She's OK with it. It's not like we haven't shared in the past.'
Shared? What the hell did that mean? Erin told me they had dated some of the same guys when they were in college, but what did Erin mean when she said shared?
'What are you telling me, Erin?' I asked.
'I can't talk much longer. My flight has just been called. Let Abby sleep in the bed with you. You've got a hall pass until I get home Wednesday night.'
I had an understanding of the term hall pass. I wasn't sure if Erin meant what I understood the term to mean.
'Hall pass?' I asked.
'Yeah, hall pass. I know what it means. Gotta go. I'll talk to you tonight.'
That was explicit enough. But it struck me as odd. I still appreciated an attractive woman and I'm sure Erin enjoyed looking sometimes. But looking was one thing. We didn't have an open marriage. We had never invited anyone to our bed. Or even joked about it. Now I had permission to sleep with and have sex with her best friend?
I got off at the next exit and turned back to the airport. I parked in a short-term lot and took a shuttle to the American terminal and the luggage carousels. As soon as I boarded the shuttle, I checked my phone and found Abby's photo and flight info. Her face was thinner. And she looked tired.
When I got to the airport, I found Abby's flight number on the board. Its status changed to on-time while I was looking at it. A few minutes later, the luggage carousel displayed.
It was another twenty minutes before the first passengers arrived at the carousel. Abby was one of the stragglers. She had the two allowed carry-ons and looked worn down, obviously ready for her journey to end. She was also searching the crowd for me. As I approached, she turned away, sill looking about.
She had just taken out her cell phone when I said, 'Hi, Abby. I'm right behind you.'
She turned to face me and smiled widely. She didn't look quite so haggard when she was smiling. She shook my hand, then pulled me into a hug.
'Hi, Curt. It's nice to finally meet you,' she said.
'Same here. You have more luggage?' I asked, fully expecting she did.
'Two suitcases,' she told me.
'Point them out, I'll grab them and we can get going. You look tired. I bet you just want to kick back and relax.' I told her.
Abby sighed. 'You have no idea. I've been on the go for almost forty-eight hours. I'm hungry and tired. And I could do with a drink, too.'
'You didn't have one on the plane?' I asked.
'I don't like to drink when I'm flying. I stick with water. The two idiots I got stuck sitting between drank more than their share. They were traveling together but made me stay in my assigned center seat and talked past me the whole flight. I couldn't sleep at all.'
Abby looked relieved and happy to see the fourth and fifth bags onto the carousel were hers. We made our way to the car, loaded up and took off for home. Traffic sucked. It took more than two hours just to get to the Whitestone Bridge.
Abby had slimmed down while in South America. She wasn't fat in the old photos. Full-figured would be more accurate. I thought she looked damn good considering how tired she was. She wore loose-fitting jeans and a red leotard under an unbuttoned long-sleeve shirt. She wasn't wearing a bra. When she moved, I got an occasional glimpse of a nipple pressing against the tight-fitting Lycra.
Abby was a few months older than Erin and perhaps four inches shorter, though still tall. I'd guess about five-nine, maybe five eight. She had same color hair as Erin without blonde highlights. Erin had a full head of long, straight hair. Abby's was short, thick and wavy. Her hair style had a sexy just-rolled-out-of-bed quality to it. She wasn't flat-chested but no longer had the prominent breasts from the old photos. Her brown eyes had flecks of gold that glinted when the sun caught them. Abby had a wide mouth that presented a goofy countenance when she smiled widely. When she laughed, you couldn't help but join in.
