[This is a work of fiction. The story is an unadulterated and unabashed attempt to tickle male fantasies and perhaps some female fantasies as well. It is a fantasy and as such, the story may or may not conform entirely with reality. With historical exceptions, all other locations, events, and characters are entirely fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.]
NOTE: Due to the request of the "hopeless romantics" in my fan base, I have posted this alternative ending and story to the original, Gloria: First Time.
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FRIDAY NIGHT
"Love is better, the second time around," or so the song says. I wonder.
Jack and I broke up shortly after the start of the first semester of college in the fall after our graduation from high school. I went to a school on the West Coast and made a career there while remaining single into my forties. He went to a school on the East Coast, got a job, married, and raised a family.
Jack's parting words were, "Gloria, you've been very special to me and you'll always hold a special place in my heart. I'm sorry we have to part like this, but so be it."
I married late to a man with a well paid but high stress job. That gave us twenty years before he died of a heart attack. We had no children. At sixty-five, I found myself financially quite well off, but widowed and alone. For three years, I enjoyed retirement and mourned my dead husband. Then came my fiftieth class reunion.
My home town and high school was in the heartland--central Indiana. I flew back, arriving at the nearby regional airport just after noon that Friday. I rented a car and drove the ten miles to Centerville to check into the motel room I 'd reserved. I quickly checked in and then rode the elevator to my third floor room.
I turned the hall corner and found my room. Another gentleman was unlocking his room door, but I was concentrating on my own door, so paid him little attention. That was a mistake.
"Gloria?"
The voice was somewhat different, but immediately recognizable.
"Jack?"
"My God, it IS you, Gloria. What's it been, forty years at the tenth reunion that I last saw you?"
"Yes, and you didn't even speak to me at that reunion."
"Yeah, I know. Still too emotionally caught up with our past relationship, I guess."
"Your wife with you, Jack?"
"No, she died five years ago. Cancer."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Jack, I didn't know."
"Thank you. I'm pretty much back together again now. I wasn't for a while."
"My husband died three years ago of a heart attack. Job stress related, I guess."
"I'm sorry too, Gloria."
"So, Jack, going to the casual pizza party tonight at Giovanni's?"
"Yeah, thought I'd take that in."
"I could use an escort. Care for the job, Jack?"
"If you twist my arm, I might."
"Consider it twisted, very tight!"
A smile lit both our faces--and our eyes.
"We've got three hours. I need a nap, so call for me at five, Jack."
"Consider it done, Gloria."
With another smile, I stepped into my room and closed the door. The first thing I noticed was Jack and I were, by coincidence, given connecting rooms. I'd bet he won't miss that fact for long either. Interesting. I didn't even check the connecting door lock. I just stripped and stretched out on the bed. I was quickly asleep.
I awoke, mostly refreshed at four. Getting up, I ambled over to the vanity area across from the door to the bath and stool. My naked body stared back at me from the mirror. For an old dame of sixty-eight, not too damned bad. My boobs, never really big in the first place, didn't have too much sag as a result. More wrinkles than fifty years ago, broader of beam as well. The face staring at me had weathered some and was more angular than the high school senior one I remembered. All in all, not too damned bad.
Other than totally bald and a fair bit heavier, I wondered how else Jack had weather the four decades since I'd last seen him. Maybe I'd find out before the weekend was over.
God, my heart was hammering like a teenager's again.
The hour flew by as I showered and got ready for the evening. I'd just put the finishing touches to myself when the knock came on the hall way door precisely at five o'clock. My heart was racing again.
God, woman, you're sixty-eight years old. Calm down.
Jack was beaming at me when I opened the door.
"Your limo, Miss, awaits."
I took Jack's offered arm and he escorted me to the motel parking lot and stopped at the passenger door of a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief, Catalina coupe. That's a two door hardtop of that era. Top of the line for Pontiac and their first V-8 that was more than the equal of the 1955 Chevy V-8 that was also new that year.
The car was absolutely gorgeous. It was bright yellow on the front end and below the belt line to the rear bumper. The top and above the belt line back to the rear bumper was white. The two tone interior matched with a black steering wheel. The car also had the dual range hydromatic of that age, with the shifter on the column. That was quite different from the floor shifter of the '57 Chevy Jack had when we dated in high school. But more fun back then, him fumbling with that shifter between my legs.
"God, Jack, it's beautiful."
"Thanks. I got it this summer. Frame off restoration from the ground up. I bought it after the resto. It cost me a bundle, but I really wanted one. I'd been looking a long time."
I got in after Jack opened the door for me..
"No full skirt and crinolines to tuck in this time, Gloria."
"Thank God, Jack, thank God. Today's slacks and tops are so much easier on a girl."
The drive to Giovanni's would be about fifteen or twenty minutes. I slid over to snuggle up against Jack and his arm automatically went around my shoulder. The hand stayed on my shoulder, but I reached up and brought it down onto my right boob. He left the hand rest there without movement.
"Remember when we used to go to Giovanni's when we were dating, Jack? We spent many an after movie date there."
"Yes, Gloria, I remember quite well."
"Do you remember the senior prom, Jack and our motel room later?"