A Traditional Swim: the Epilogue

Author's Note: It had been my intention to end this series with Chapter 17. My thought was to allow readers to draw their own conclusions about why Sara abandoned Harry so abruptly. Reader comments have suggested that this was a bad idea. Consequently, I offer this epilogue to, hopefully, close the loop. I do not believe that this epilogue will have much meaning unless you have read at least some of the previous chapters of my tale. While my tale has drawn on some real events for inspiration, this and all previous chapters are works of fiction. Any similarity to any real person or organization is unintended and purely coincidental.

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The full impact of Sara's call did not hit me until I started walking around our house. Everywhere I looked I saw something of hers or some memento of something we had done together or somewhere we had been together. I had understood intellectually that I would not be seeing Sara again as I heard her detached voice on the phone in that last call. Walking around the house was when it hit me viscerally. I became physically ill.

After I cleaned up, I went out and sat on the beach. I sat there until it was long after dark, just staring at the cove. I was exhausted, but, when I went to bed, I couldn't sleep. I just kept asking myself "why?" What had I done to drive her away?

I guess I did fall asleep at some point. When I regained consciousness, it was mid-day. The house seemed abandoned without Sara there. I cursed and left the house. I walked aimlessly for a few minutes. Without really thinking about it, I had walked to Sally's bar and restaurant. As I walked in, Sally greeted me and asked when Sara was due back.

"She's not coming back, I said. Sally gave me a very odd look so I had to explain the whole story, or as much of it as I knew. That hurt, a lot. I drank, but not as much as you might expect. I wasn't weaving as I went back to the house a couple of hours later.

I had left my cell phone in the house when I went to Sally's. I had morosely decided that I wouldn't be getting calls any more. To prove that there was another thing which I was wrong about, my phone rang. I looked at the screen just enough to see that the call was not from Sara's number and answered.

"Harry," my special friend Karen said, "Sara's left you, hasn't she?"

"How did you know?" I asked.

"That's what I need to talk to you about," Karen said. "This is a conversation which we really need to have in person. Do you mind if I come down there?"

That was odd because Karen had just been on the island for a week. "No, I don't mind. Come on down," I said.

"Good," Karen replied, "I booked a flight for tomorrow. I'm scheduled in at 6:05 p.m. Please pick me up at the airport."

"Of course," I replied.

"Great. I'll see you tomorrow," Karen said and ended the call.

What did Karen need to see me about in person and why was it so urgent? How the hell did she know that Sara had left?

I took Sara's SUV to the airport to get Karen the next evening. I walked towards her as she came out of the secure zone with her carry-on. Karen always looked extremely beautiful. However, her face looked tired and worried. Karen wore a rather tight-fitting sundress. Knowing that Sara was gone, I could finally admit to myself that Karen was the most beautiful woman I had ever known.

As she approached me, Karen raised her carry-on and said, "This is all that I have." I took her bag from her and led her out to the SUV.

On the ride down to the house, Karen didn't say much besides asking how I was holding up. I was honest and told her that I really didn't know. Once I parked at the house, Karen took her bag and walked over to one of the patio chairs we had outside facing the cove. She sat down, reached into her bag, and pulled out a large envelope and a small one.

I sat down next to Karen. She waived the large envelope. "This is the petition for dissolution of our marriage that Rick's lawyer has filed in court in Ft. Myers," she said. I was astounded. Karen and Rick had been married for several years. The idea that they might ever split up had never occurred to me. Karen handed me the smaller envelope. "This is Rick's explanation of what is going on."

I pulled a short letter out of the envelope. It was handwritten in a surprisingly legible male hand. This is what Dr. Rick had written to his wife:

"That partner-swap which we did with Sara and Harry was probably a mistake. Sara and I discovered a very special and deep connection with each other that night. I am leaving you to be with her. I would feel like I was treating you horribly except that I think that you and Harry have the same connection that exists between Sara and me. The four of us need to make the partner-swap permanent. I hope that you and Harry have a wonderful life together."

I finished Rick's note and just stared at Karen.

"The property division he's proposing is very generous," Karen said. "I get the house on Captiva and he's transferred shares in his company to me. The company is closely-held so you can debate what the shares are worth, but I'm guaranteed at least $200,000 per year in dividends. He's also willing to split his investment portfolio 50-50. That portfolio is currently worth $ 17 million. I never completely stopped consulting and I can get that back to full steam I think."

I regained my voice. "So, what are we going to do?" I asked.

"I thought a lot on the trip down here about what I want to do and about what I want to say to you," Karen replied. "My husband of several years and your partner of several years both left us for each other. That hurts very much. It is a wound that probably won't heal completely for either of us. But, no one can go back and undo what happened. I think that the best thing for us is to move on and make the best life for ourselves that we can." Karen paused. She took a deep breath. "I think that we should take Rick's advice."

I had not seen any of this coming. I said, "So, you think that you and I should hook up?"

Karen gave a nervous laugh. "I would phrase it more romantically, but, yeah, that's what I want to do."

I was very torn. I had developed a strong love for and loyalty to Sara over the years we had been together. Even though she had abruptly left me, I couldn't just turn that off. On the other hand, I had felt a powerful attraction to Karen from the time we first worked together several years ago. I had never acted on that attraction because Karen had always been taken, unattainable. She was a free woman now, albeit not by her choice.

I looked at Karen. She looked tired, anxious, vulnerable, and very beautiful. I realized that she was waiting to see whether she was going to suffer a second rejection. I also realized that Karen was not the consolation prize for losing Sara. She was a very intelligent, articulate, beautiful, and sexy woman who had been my dear friend for years, and more recently my very infrequent lover. Maybe this terrible thing could work out well for both of us.

There was one thing which I felt that I needed to be very open about with Karen from the start. I didn't think it would be a problem for her. "I'm not abandoning my nudist life-style," I said.

Karen's face brightened considerably. "I understand that," she replied. Karen stood up, grabbed the hem of her sundress, and pulled it over her head. She was naked underneath. "I can handle that," Karen said smiling. "Why do you still have clothes on?"

I stood up, pulled my tee shirt over my head and dropped my shorts. I took Karen's hand and, together, we walked naked into the warm water of the cove. After some hugging, kissing, and fondling, we made love in the water. There was a sailboat with people on it anchored by the eastern point. I'm sure that it was obvious to them what we were doing. We didn't care.

To shorten a long story, Karen and I bounced back and forth between her place on Captiva and my place on Martinique for about 18 months. Ten months of that was waiting for the dissolution of Karen's marriage to Rick to become final in the court. Even when things are uncontested, the courts move slowly.

We were on Captiva. I was outside cleaning Karen's pool. She came walking out of the house nude waving a sheet of paper in front of her. When she reached me, she said, "My lawyer just e-mailed this over. I am no longer legally married to Rick."

I immediately went to one knee. "Karen, will you marry me?" I asked.

Karen got down on her gorgeous knees. She hugged me. "Of course," she said.

Planning the wedding took a bit of time although, as Karen said, "A second wedding doesn't need to be as elaborate as the first." I was pleased that Karen suggested that we get married in the nude. A few calls to some of the State's clothing optional resorts gave us the leads we needed to find someone to officiate a nude wedding.

Another subject we discussed was children. Karen had always wanted them but Dr. Rick always put it off, saying that they'd have children when he was less busy. My life was much, much less hectic than Rick's had been.

We were married by the pool at Karen's house on Captiva, in view of the Gulf of Mexico, the following May. It was a small wedding. Karen's sister Katy came from New York. She reluctantly agreed to go nude as Karen's maid of honor. Rob was less hesitant to go nude as my best man. Sandy and Heather came. Sally flew up from the island, where I still owned the house. All of them went nude. There were also a couple from Captiva and a couple from Miami who were long-term friends of Karen. They stayed clothed.

I stood nude on the patio with Rob and the minister waiting for Karen to come out to get married for the second time. A somewhat embarrassed Katy came out of the house first. Karen walked out behind Katy looking happy and proud. All she wore was a white garter on one thigh.

"You shouldn't wear white for a second marriage," Karen had told me, "But I think that wearing just a garter will look kind of sexy." Karen did look incredibly sexy and incredibly beautiful. Neither her sex appeal nor her beauty nor my desire for her was diminished at all by the baby bump that was now visible.