Pen Pals

John

I stand a few feet behind her admiring the sleek shape that I have come to adore over the years. Admiring the beauty that has taken my breath away time after time. We have travelled so far together, seen so many sights. Sure, there have been cloudy times and days of stormy rain, but I couldn't imagine what life would be like without her.

I step closer, reaching out my hand, giving a soft pat and tender caress to the leather encased softness that has born my weight and carried me to my limits countless times. Lifting my leg, I slowly straddle her for the first time today. Stretching my right arm to able myself to reach the little button that I know will bring my baby to life.

Whispering softly so only she can hear my voice, I tell her "Something new for us today, are you ready?" Contact with that magical button brings her roaring to life with a growl that I love almost as much as life itself. Maybe more. The vibrations that accompany her throaty growl remind me of the countless times that we have been together in the past. My left hand and left leg work together and effortlessly kick her into gear. I give a slight twist of my right hand and we are off to begin a new adventure.

If you are familiar with riding in general and the love of a man and his Harley then you may have already figured out where this was leading. I have been riding motorcycles nearly all of my life. My older cousins put me on their 50cc pit bike when I was only 4 years old. Now at the ripe old age of 50 I have had my Road King for more than 10 years and she looks just as good today as the day I bought her. We have travelled near and far and to this point in my life she is the only thing that has never let me down.

My name is John, I am retired after a long and exciting military career. No, nothing like what you are thinking. I have never been Force Recon, Army Ranger, Navy Seal or expert sniper. Just a simple medic working in military clinics and hospitals around the world for almost 23 years.

I have taken pretty decent care of myself over the years. I stand 6'3" and weigh in around 215 pounds. My once blonde hair has prematurely turned grey a few years back but I don't mind. It doesn't clash with my blues eyes, at least I don't think so. Being 50 means that I am beyond the youthful hard body look that I carried for so long, but if you look close enough the traces are still there.

I prefer to lead my life in a quiet and unassuming way. I keep to myself most of the time and always mind my own business. I take care of my house, my lawn and my Harley. My 2 sons are grown and out of the house and starting the lives that they want to live. They have grown to be mature responsible young men with bright futures in front of them so I suppose I have done my job successfully with them.

The new adventure that I am starting today and the story leading up to it are quite remarkable. If you knew me you would never believe most of what you are about to read. At least I hope you hang around long enough to read it.

You see, some time back, I met someone. Well not really met but became acquainted with someone. Online. No not a Craigslist hook-up or even an online dating site. I met her through a pen pal website with absolutely no intention of ever progressing beyond just finding someone to communicate with and become friends. Today, I am on my way to meet her face to face for the first time.

Turning left at the end of the drive and riding through the tree lined countryside I think back to how all of this began.

Sandra

I woke up early to see that Alice, my 15-year-old daughter, was still asleep in the other bed. I decide to go downstairs to the hotel lobby and make a cup of tea, so I wouldn't disturb her. I pulled on my clothes and slipped out of the door. I sit outside in the early morning sun in the guest garden with my tea and reflect on the last few whirlwind days and feel the familiar fluttering of butterflies in my stomach as I think about later today.

We arrived in Chicago 3 days earlier following a short stay in New York. After a couple of exciting days exploring Chicago, we picked up our hire car and started our long drive to Los Angeles following the old Route 66. We travelled around 200 miles yesterday before stopping in Springfield, Illinois for the night. This was our dream holiday to celebrate the end of Alice's time at secondary school before moving onto 6th form, but also to celebrate the end of a difficult period in my life and to signify the start of my next chapter.

I'm Sandra and I'm from a small market town in England. I have spent most of my personal and professional life caring for and working with children, mainly the most vulnerable and damaged ones. I have been married twice and have two grown up sons as well as Alice. My romantic life hasn't been a success and following the end of my second marriage around 5 years ago, I vowed I would never let any man get close to my heart again. I didn't think I would be able to trust anyone enough. Or so I thought! It took several years for me to find the girl I used to be before marriage had almost eradicated her.

Over the next few years, I slowly gained back the confidence I once had and started to enjoy life again. And here I am, driving almost 2500 miles across America with my equally strong daughter navigating.

I'm not a classic beauty, but I'm not unattractive. I'm 5' 7" tall, shoulder length hair (it should be more grey than brown these days, but a little help from my hairdresser solves that problem), blue eyes and a body that is softer and carrying a little more weight than it did as a younger woman, but at 50 that's not such a problem. I've never been sporty, but I keep myself fit and active by hiking.

I returned to the hotel room to find Alice was awake, showered and dressed. She was keen to get some breakfast so I suggested she went down ahead of me whilst I got ready. I also showered and took greater care with my appearance than I usually do. I made sure I wore the blue shirt that brought out the blue in my eyes, straightened my hair and put on a little make-up. Just a 'barely there' amount, a flick of mascara and slick of lipstick, but more than I usually bother during the daytime. I also added a spray of perfume.

When I finally met Alice at the breakfast table, she gave me a quizzical look at seeing my make-up, but chose to say nothing. She was aware that I was meeting a friend of mine later that day in St. Louis but didn't realise how important he had become to me.

This was the reason for the butterflies and the excitement I could feel building up. Earlier on this year I did something completely out of character. I joined an online pen pal site and made contact with several people from around the world with a view to make some new friends I could chat with via emails. One man stood out and we quickly became firm friends. He has completely changed the way I view myself and how I view men and relationships and we both felt a connection, quickly forming a close bond. Today, after months of corresponding, we were finally meeting.

John

When Sandra and I first started corresponding, it was very much like what you would imagine from two people who were strangers trying to get to know each other. There were discussions about careers, family, hobbies and interests. I was more than a little surprised to learn that while we had very different backgrounds, we shared many interests and views on life.

As I learned more about Sandra, seeing how caring and compassionate she was really drew me to her. Particularly the love she had for disadvantaged children. I learned that she was a foster parent caring for special needs children and teens. That was a strong bond that we shared as I had been a foster parent for a number of years myself. I always felt a need to help those who needed it the most, especially kids, since my childhood history was at many times pretty dark. But that is a story for another time.

I found myself starting to think of Sandra in a different light. Were the feelings I had just because of the common interests that led to our budding friendship? Or was it something more? I couldn't allow myself to think that way. Was I crazy? This woman lived 4,000 miles away. That alone would be an impossible barrier to overcome. Plus, I was a grouchy old retired military biker type. What would she possibly see in someone like me?

Then 2 things happened that changed my views completely. First, we had discussed exchanging photos so we could put faces to our conversations. When I received her pictures, I was floored. Her physical descriptions of herself were far short of the reality that I saw in front of me on my computer screen. Sandra was my idea of perfect. She had shoulder length brown hair that was styled but not overly done to look pretentious. Her gorgeous blue eyes were deep and infectious. Sandra's smile could light up even the darkest room. It certainly didn't hurt that she looked at least a decade younger than her confessed age. She was the perfect "girl next door" and I knew that I was in trouble.

Secondly, she had mentioned coming to the US on vacation with her 15-year-old daughter Alice. They would be travelling the historic Route 66 together. That should clue you into the amount of courage this woman had. To travel to and then explore a foreign country? Brave! I wanted to have an opportunity to meet this incredible woman while she was here. I couldn't bring that up though. She was taking a once in a lifetime experience with her daughter. I did not want to invite myself into that and make her miss out on time with Alice. I shared with her some of the sights that she should look into while on her trip. Sandra then asked if I thought that it would be possible for us to actually meet while she was in St Louis. I could not turn away from this chance.

We had agreed to meet at the St Louis Zoo after she and Alice had checked into their Air B & B apartment. I thought that the zoo would be a good place to meet. It would be a very public venue so hopefully she would not feel threatened for her and Alice's safety. I wasn't an axe murderer or anything but she didn't know that. With my size and biker appearance, I had been told more than once that I can look intimidating. I didn't want that to come across to Sandra and Alice. I wanted them to feel comfortable.

So, here I am. A somewhat grizzled old man, riding up Interstate 55 at 75 miles an hour feeling like a teenage boy again. I was going to meet a very pretty, sophisticated British lady, wearing boots, jeans and a faded T-shirt. I was not going to try to spruce myself up and make myself look like someone I wasn't. I was hopeful that she would like me but I wanted her to like the real me. Not someone trying to pretend to be someone he wasn't. I would find out soon enough I guess, only 22 more miles and I would know for sure.

Sandra

When I first saw John's profile on the pen pal site, I was drawn to his short text saying he was looking for friends from around the world to chat to. This matched what I was looking for so I sent a short message to say hello.

Before I knew it, we were sharing emails several times a day and I found I was beginning to look forward to reading his messages. I quickly realised that despite our very different backgrounds and lifestyles, we had a lot in common. He had previously been a foster parent and understood the rewards and difficulties that came with caring for children that had traumatic pasts.

Despite living close to the town centre, I am a country girl at heart and I loved to hear John describe his home and simple lifestyle. I have never met anyone who shared this love of a quiet rural life and although he took part in many activities I have never tried, fishing, hunting and riding his pride and joy, his Harley, I found myself wondering what life would be like if things had been different.

John was clearly a kind, sensitive and compassionate man and I opened to him in a way I had never been able to with anyone else. After the initial tentative introductions and polite chat, we began to delve deeper into each other's lives and thoughts. I struggled with understanding my feelings for John, I found myself falling for him, but I kept telling myself that these feelings weren't real as we had never met. I found that when I was feeling a little down, his kind words would feel like they were enveloping me a warm hug.

He was fast becoming an important part of my life and I couldn't understand how or why it was happening. We agreed to exchange photos, something I thought I would never do. Why would we need to, we were just friends? I asked Alice to take the photos as I have very few and sent them off. He was very flattering about my photo which gave me a huge confidence boost, no man had looked at me in that way for 5 years and even though I thought he might have just been saying it to be kind, I secretly loved his comments.

In return, he sent me a photo of himself. It was around ten years old and was taken at a formal ceremony. In it I could see he was a tall, good looking man, but it wasn't recent so a few days later, he sent the 'selfie' he promised me. I was instantly smitten. He had changed little since the earlier photo, maybe a little more grey, but in this photo it showed his smile that reached his eyes and I could see he was every bit the all American biker I imagined him to be. I thought he was extremely attractive, exactly my type. If I was worried about my feelings before, I had no chance now of denying the depth of them.

Something else began to happen, up until that moment, I knew without any doubt that I would never be able to trust a man again enough to start a relationship. I found that I was beginning to learn to trust again. I trusted this gentle unassuming man with my closest kept secrets and feelings and I started to wonder if maybe there would be a chance of finding happiness within a relationship again. Not necessarily with John, the 4000 miles between us would make that impossible, but who knows?

I had obviously told John all about my planned trip with Alice and I knew that he didn't live too far from St Louis, one of our planned overnight stops. I was worried about asking him if he would like to meet up in case it was the last thing on his mind, but decided to anyway. To my joy he was just as keen.

I booked an Air Band B apartment after checking with John that it was in a suitable location and we made plans to meet at the zoo. I checked with Alice that she was alright with meeting someone she didn't know and being the independent girl she was, she said that as long as she was able to wonder off on her own for a while, she was fine with it. This would give John and I the chance to spend some time together to see how we really felt about each other.

I have arranged many amazing activities and visits along the course of our trip. We're staying in a concrete wigwam, spending a night in the middle of nowhere on a traditional working Navajo sheep ranch and staying at the Grand Canyon amongst other things, but today is by far the most exciting day I have planned. We set off early to ensure we still have time to stop many times along the route to visit some of the many little museums and independent businesses between Springfield and St Louis, but luckily today's journey is little over 100 miles so shouldn't take too long.

John`

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Riding into the parking lot on that warm summer afternoon I felt a nervous energy that I have not felt in decades. I climbed off of my Harley while unbuckling my helmet placing it on the seat. Thinking to myself "what are you so nervous about? You are 50 years old not 16. You have travelled the word including being deployed to war zones and didn't feel like this. Man up!!"

I looked down at my phone checking the time and realized that I was about 15 minutes early. This would be a good chance to have a smoke and try to relax a little. I didn't want to share my nasty habit with Sandra knowing that she didn't smoke.

Stubbing out the cigarette while walking to South entrance I found a shaded bench to sit while waiting for their arrival. I sat waiting patiently while watching the crowds of people entering and leaving the zoo. Just as I was thinking maybe they got lost on the way or even not coming, I heard it from just to my right.

The unmistakable British accent. "John, is that you?" I jumped to my feet as if someone had lit a match to my jeans. I recognized Sandra walking towards me with a nervous smile while holding hands with a younger version of herself.

She was wearing a light blue button-down sleeveless shirt, a pair of slightly faded blue jeans that were loose fitting but just tight enough to show that she was sporting all of the curves of a woman. Her white tennis shoes would be the obvious choice for a long day of walking around the zoo. She was perfect! Even prettier than her pictures.

I smiled when I stood. "Sandra, it is so good to finally meet you. And this must be Alice. Hello Alice, I have heard so much about you." Sandra reached out with both arms hugging me closely as my own arms circled her waist with a hug of my own. I caught a whiff of her perfume as I felt her body so close to my own. All of the nervous anticipation that I felt earlier evaporated in an instant. Not wanting to embarrass myself by holding the hug too long, I slowly pulled back while kissing Sandra softly on the cheek.

She blushed slightly and said "Thank you. And yes, this is my daughter Alice." That British accent was going to drive me insane before the day was over. So sexy. Looking over at Alice I thought that I saw the eye roll that said "UGH gross, grown-ups acting like teenagers." I laughed to myself and extended my hand saying "nice to meet you." She returned my greeting politely as she asked her mother if we could go inside to get something to drink.

I stepped to the side "ladies first." Alice was the first through the gate followed by Sandra. Of course, I had to take the opportunity to glance at Sandra's perfectly shaped, plump derriere as she made her way through the opening. With a quick glance over her shoulder she showed an impish little grin as she asked "are you coming?" Did I just get caught stealing a quick look? How do women always know when a guy is checking them out? That was a view that I could get used to seeing was my thought as I followed them into the zoo.

Sandra

After parking the car, we headed towards the entrance where I had arranged to meet John. I could see him straight away sitting on a bench anxiously checking his watch. I realised we were a couple of minutes late, but wanted to take a moment to calm myself down. Those butterflies were doing triple somersaults now. From where I was standing, I could see he was every bit as good looking as his photo. Alice, the impatient teenager asked if that was him and grabbing my hand dragged me towards him. I had no choice, but to call out to him.

When he stood up, I could see what he meant about being tall. Even though I knew he was 6' 3" I hadn't really appreciated how much taller than me he would be. He wasn't intimidating as he had warned me he might be several times, just tall enough to make me feel he would look after me.

I hadn't been sure how I would greet him, but I gave him a hug. After all this time it felt nice to be in his arms at last. After quick introductions, we went inside the zoo to go and find somewhere to have a drink. I followed Alice and when I had a quick glance over my shoulder at John, I thought I saw him being a bit cheeky and checking out my rear. This was confirmed when he had the grace to look a little embarrassed at being caught.

Alice had already done her research and asked if we could get a drink from Starbucks which was somewhere near the centre of the zoo. She wanted somewhere familiar after moving around so much over the last few days. We found a table with benches in the shade and Alice went to order saying she wanted to see what different drinks were on the menu compared with Starbucks back home.