This is a story based partly based on true events. Feedback is welcome and encouraged. This is my first submitted story.
"It's not that I don't have love and happiness and a good life, because I do, and that's not going to change. It's just that what I'm missing is, I don't know, excitement. Passion. I want to feel scared again, you know?"
She smiled at me, almost apologetically, her green eyes looking into mine. With a flick of her hand she brushed her thick, deep brown hair away from her face and sighed in a that's-life kind of way. I held her gaze for a moment, thoughts unsaid. We both smiled, laughed and got on with our meals.
We had known each other for about 8 hours, met by accident, and, such is the way at conferences, joined forces to fight against the boredom of long sessions in the conference room. I had initially met her at the registration desk where she was trying to fix some error with her company details at the same moment she was juggling a mobile phone call, a briefcase and a cup of coffee. I helped her out by holding the briefcase and the coffee, while she sorted out the other problems.
I learned her name almost straight away, read it from her name tag. Callie Marr. I assumed that she learned that my name was David Blake in the same way. The rest I knew about her, I learned slowly during the day, over coffee, lunch, pre-dinner drinks, and now as she sat across from me, pushing her pasta around her plate, over dinner.
The conference was boringly technical, dealing with that dull little zone where information technology, the law and human resources overlap. I had been sent along by my company for no other reason than I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the boss was looking for someone to send. It was really outside of my area of expertise, but on the upside, it got me out of the office and the house for a few days.
I like my job and I love my wife and child but it is always a pleasure to have time to oneself. The conference was about an hour's drive from home, so I took advatage of my company's policy regarding business trips: standard hotel room, no room service or mini-bar charged to the firm, preferably at the conference location (to take advantage of those cheap conference rates) and all expense claims to be backed up by receipts.
Callie was in a similar position to me, she had booked into the hotel for the four nights of the conference. She too lived about an hour away, but in the opposite direction. It meant we came from places over a hundred miles apart. Her company was a competitor of mine (in the business of headhunting staff for big corporate clients) but we rarely competed directly. Callie's firm specialized in technicians, IT specialists, nerds. Mine focussed on the executive level, managers, CEO's, CIO's, CFO's and all the other proliferation of buzz-word top-level staff that big companies feel they need to impress the shareholders and investment houses.
During the morning I had learned a little about Callie. She had only returned to work after a five year break to raise her child to a school age. She was married to a husband who managed an air conditioning company, she was 39, fearing 40. And her life was hectic from morning till night.
"I only came to this conference for a break from it all," she confessed at lunch. "I don't think I'll get much out of this week. But I won't have to get up at six to fix my daughter's breakfast, or race from work when she's sick at school. That's daddy's job this week. With a little help from grandma."
Her phone rang at that moment and she smiled ruefully, "Of course I wasn't smart enough to leave the mobile at home, was I." She answered the call and became involved in solving a minor work problem, giving me another chance to observe her.
Callie was an attractve woman, not immediately beautiful yet captivating nonetheless. She had a casual, shy grace about her, a woman who considered herself plain yet carried herself with dignity and quiet confidence. She was 5 feet 6, or therebouts, with a well-proportioned body, by no means a 16 year old's svelte slimness, rather the healthy shapely curves of a woman in her thirties. Under her conservative navy blue business suit, I imagined, large, ripe, rounded breasts, almost-flat stomach and long smooth legs. Her face was blessed by high cheekbones and small straight nose, genetic inheritances matched by an obvious care in her appearance over the years. Her skin looked healthy, very lightly tanned and she had freshly washed, long hair, quite thick, luxuriant was the word that came to my mind, that cascaded over her shoulders and halfway down her back. There was the hint of lining around her eyes and the slightest softening of her jawline but she could probably have passed for someone a decade younger.
During the afternoon I had learned that she was happily married, happy to be working again, happy to be a mother and happy with the cards life had dealt her. Or as she put it, "as happy as anyone, in other words mostly happy." By dinner we were chatting about our respective lives, both enjoying the opportunity to confer, complain and commiserate with a stranger of sorts. We were unlikely to meet again and there was precious little from the conference worth discussing so it was only natural to talk about our lives. Other delegates seemed fascinated by the topics from the first day's session which amused Callie and I endlessly and provided numerous opportunitied for jokes at their expense. She made dinner, the whole day in fact, a far more pleasant experience than the one I had feared at registration time that morning.
Callie quized me about my life, my wife, my child, my home, my leisure time. All those things that bridge the gap between idle small talk and actually getting to know someone. She pouted when she found out that I was younger and had a few years up my sleeve before being confronted by the big four-oh. The other things about me were, if not predictable, at least fairly routine. I was happily married, or at least mostly happily married. I had a 3 year old son, a 25 year mortgage, a four year old car, a twelve year old career that needed to continue its upward momentum or risk stalling permanently, and a 37 year old body that had stood the test of time reasonably well, all things considered.
I can't claim to be an Adonis, or even anything more than average. Perhaps if I'm feeling good, a little above average maybe. I'm 6 feet tall, almost exactly, with very short light brown hair, verging on blond. I swim regularly so I've managed to stay trim and reasonably well toned and, if I avoid burning, lightly tanned. My stomach may not have a six-pack but it is flat, and there is some hardness to it rather than flab. At my best I can claim to be of average build, but well maintained. I have a face that a female friend once described as forgettably ordinary except for clear blue-grey eyes which are probably my only stand-out physical feature in terms of being noticed by women. I look quite presentable in a suit, but I'm really a board shorts and t shirt kind of guy.
I had asked Callie, if she had everything she wanted in life, and it was then that she had told me she wanted some passion in her life, a little excitement back. I knew exactly what she meant.
"It would be nice to live dangerously once in a while, wouldn't it?" I said, sipping from my glass of red wine.
"Exactly, David. Well said," she laughed. We had both had several pre-dinner drinks at the obligatory, end-of-day wind down at the hotel bar, then a couple of glasses over dinner. She was at that perfect stage that alcohol delivers for an all too brief time, when you've had just the right amount to drink, when you can still make wise decisions but are relaxed enough to make the occasional bad one and enjoy it.
She looked at me over the rim of her glass for a moment. "You know the only way I'll be able to handle more of this thing?" she said, gesturing around at the tables of half-drunk delegates, eagerly discussing obscure points raised during the day. "The only way, I'll be able to handle it, is if I get good and drunk tonight. You up for it?"
I laughed, enjoying her company, feeling blessed that I was with her, this bright, intelligent, attractive woman rather than the dull, spirit-crushing conversations at the other tables. "I'm in," I said. "Let's get smashed."
She cheered in delight and told me it had been years since she'd had the opportunity to do something so irresponsible and pointless. "But, what the hell. I feel like it. I'll probably hate myself for it in the morning but I need one good night."
It was decided. We were going to be seriously drinking tonight. After dinner, Callie excused herself so she could return to her room to change into something a little more appropriate than her business suit. I took the opportunity to do the same, changing into casual pants and a light cotton shirt. I met her back in the bar fifteen minutes later and she looked wonderful. She wore the proverbial little black dress, finishing at mid-thigh, thin shoulder straps, fitted over her breasts and just tight enough to leave something to the imagination, but not too much. She wore a little makeup, and looked even better than before. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation, an anticipation that I felt too.
For both of us, it wasn't that we hadn't done this sort of thing before, a wild, spontaneous night. It was the fact that we hadn't done anything for pure selfish enjoyment for some time. We had families, responsibilities, commitments, lives that allowed little time, opportunity or even inclination for nights of drinking anymore.
"So," I said as we took a booth at the back of the bar, "What's your poison?"
"Suggest something?" she replied, challenging me with those green eyes.
"OK, let's start with tequila slammers and then after that we'll get really serious."
She laughed. "Sounds good."
We did two tequilas each, the raw alcohol burning our throats and hitting our bloodstreams with the desired speed. We moved onto more sedate drinks after that, sambuca and Coke, both happily drunk and talking non-stop.
Our conversations ranged over a number of topics, basically anything that might make us laugh. It was during a brief lull in the chatter that Callie surprised me, with a question I hadn't anticipated at all.
"Tell me David, how's your sex life?" she said, looking across the table at me.
I hesitated for a moment, trying to frame an honest answer. "Well, all things considered, I'd have to say good, but..."
"Let me guess, not enough and not hot enough?"
I considered this for a moment. "Yes. It's become predictable and I guess a bit stale."
She looked into her drink thoughtfully. "Me too," she said quietly. "I love him and love having sex with him but it's comforting rather than, you know, mindblowing."
