"It's been a long time," she said uncertainly, as she rubbed her hands nervously along her thighs. "I mean, the divorce was five years ago, and we separated a year before that."
"It doesn't matter to me. The only question is, are you going to let it matter to you?" I kept my voice low, and held my gaze steady. I wanted to make sure that this was something she wanted, and not something she was doing under pressure. We were sitting on the floor, in front of the fireplace, on a soft, worn rug.
I had begun thinking about the game several hours ago, shortly after we got in the car. It was spring, and Rachel and I were driving to her cabin to open it up for the season. She had bought it a decade or more ago with her now ex-husband as a vacation getaway. Since the divorce, she had been maintaining it, but it was tough on her. The real estate crash meant that she couldn't sell it for what she paid for it, so she had no choice but to maintain it as best she could. We both lived near Troy, New York, so it was an almost 7 hour drive to the small town on the coast of Maine that provided the mailing address for her cabin.
The cabin itself was small affair, built as a three-season refuge for middle-class factory workers and civil servants who wanted to escape the city for a while to hunt, fish and relax in midst of beautiful rolling hills, small lakes, and the ocean shore. The cabin was furnished and had a living room, small kitchen, a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom. The rooms and the furniture were all rudimentary, but serviceable for a week or two at a time. The centerpiece of the house was the sliding glass door that opened on a small patio with an expansive view of the boat dock and lake beyond. A field-stone fireplace flanked the glass, providing warmth and light on colder evenings.
Usually, Rachel went up to the cabin for a weekend in May to get it ready for the summer. Scheduling that weekend was a problem, since she had to juggle her son's sports and school schedule, her job, and her other obligations back in Troy. Opening the cabin was a two-person job, involving cleaning the place after a long winter of disuse, getting the water and utilities restored, and stocking the cabinets for the summer. Rachel's son, Brian, usually went with her to the cabin, but sometimes his schedule didn't allow a weekend away. On those occasions, Rachel would go with a friend or relative for the long trip. This time, I volunteered.
I'd been watching Rachel for a couple of years now. My wife and I moved into the house down the street several years back, and we met Rachel and her family through neighborhood events and church and school meetings. We were all very friendly, and spent a fair amount of time with each other, sitting on the porch and sharing stories and drinks. We had all been to the cabin several times and enjoyed spending time with Rachel and Brian. One evening a couple of weeks ago, Rachel had mentioned that she needed to go open the cabin, and my wife and I volunteered. When it came time to leave, Brenda had to complete a project at work and couldn't go, so Rachel and I decided to go alone.
Rachel was not a classic beauty, but then again, neither was I. She was of average height, slightly heavy, with full, mature breasts and graying hair. Her eyes sparkled when she laughed, giving her face an attractiveness that wasn't apparent on first glance. I enjoyed spending time with her, and we had engaged in some spirited conversations. I had never really spent much time alone with Rachel before, so we had never had any really intimate conversations. I knew she wasn't adverse to discussing sex and other intimate topics, but we had just never had that kind of conversation. While I didn't intend to try to seduce Rachel, I certainly wouldn't avoid an opportunity to get her to loosen up and be a little freer. Since my fetishes involve voyeurism as well as reading and listening to stories of sexual adventures, I thought I might try to get her to talk about her sexual history.
We left early on Friday, in order to get to the cabin that evening. We would stay in a hotel on Friday, since the water wouldn't be on until Saturday. We would spend Saturday working on the cabin, and stay there Saturday night before returning on Sunday. I had only that long to get the stories I longed to hear.
My plan was simple. I would direct our conversations to dating, relationships, and families. Since we both had teenage children, it was natural to talk about our expectations for their sexual relationships in the context of our own histories. If that didn't get me what I needed, I knew that we would spend Saturday night with some adult beverages, so I could also use that to my advantage.
The drive was uneventful, and I learned a little about her personal history and about her divorce. We had known that the divorce was not Rachel's fault, but we hadn't known that she had walked in on her husband and his lover not once, but twice. Of course, he promised to mend his ways, but after the second time, she told him to get out. We chatted casually as we puttered about the cabin, getting things organized for the day of work ahead on Saturday. After we broke for dinner, we headed back to the hotel to relax and swim in the hotel pool. Since we were trying to economize, we were sharing a room at the little hotel. Rachel took her small bag into the bathroom to change, and came out dressed in her swimsuit and covered with one of the hotel robes. She was surprised that I was already changed. I said, " Well, you know how guys are. It doesn't take us long." To be honest, I wouldn't have been upset if she had walked in on me naked, and she seemed smiled a bit, implying that the prospect didn't disturb her all that much.
We went down to the pool area and spent about half an hour in the pool and hot tub, splashing around and just generally relaxing. We went back to the room to change, and this time I waited until she had finished in the bathroom before I went in and changed. We had a couple drinks in the small lounge attached to the hotel, and then went back to the room. We were both tired after the drive, and the rest of Friday evening passed uneventfully.
Saturday was more promising. We got back to the cabin and set about getting it ready for the summer. After all the moving, cleaning, cutting, trimming and repairing, we went to the store for supplies and food for dinner. We also decided that the evening's libations were to be margaritas, so we got plenty of tequila, mixers and ice.
After dinner, we started a fire and settled in. We both enjoyed board games, so we inventoried the cabin's supply. Scrabble looked promising, and as the evening wore on and the tequila flowed, the words we spelled became more adult. When I finally went out on "quim" (on a triple word score, no less!) we laughed ourselves silly.
I decided it was time to move on to the next part of my plan. "Any thought on what to play next?" I asked innocently.
"Oh, I don't know. Most of these require more people, so we don't have a lot of choice." She looked around and her eyes lit up. "What about Trivial Pursuit?"
"Great! I love that game." We got it out and set it up, reviewing the rules and categories. "Hey, I've got an idea. Want to make this a little more interesting?" I smiled in what I hoped was a disarming way.