My name is John and I'm 46 years old. I work in downtown Los Angeles, heading up the IT department head for a medium-sized law firm. All-in-all, I'm your basic mid-40s average white guy with medium brown hair, blue eyes and glasses, 5-foot 9 inches tall, and weigh about 175 pounds. .
I've been happily married to my wife Rachel for 19 years. She works at a hospital as a billing supervisor. Rachel is an attractive woman at 44 years old, 5-foot 4 inches tall, weighing about 140 pounds. She has long, dark brown hair, and beautiful dark brown eyes. While she has developed a little curviness over the years, to my eye her body has the perfect proportions. And she still gets looks from guys, no matter if we're dressed up and out to dinner, in jeans and t-shirt at the grocery store, or in yoga pants at the gym. Trust me, I notice the looks she gets (not that I ever say anything to Rachel).
We live in a nice suburban neighborhood with our two kids. Our daughter, Allie, is 18 and is a senior in high school. Max, her brother, is 16 and a sophomore. Like most couples, Rachel and I have had our ups and downs, but we've kept it together and raised two great kids. Now that Allie and Max are in high school, they are much more interested in their own social lives than they are in hanging out with their parents. We were always a close family unit that did everything together. It was an adjustment as the kids developed their independence, but we found that it was great for our relationship. These days we are starting to enjoy going out again and doing things with just the two of us.
Best of all, now that we have time apart from the kids, our sex life has naturally improved. We went from having sex maybe once every two months to several times a week. We had been focused on the kids for so many years, and the frequency of sex had slowed down so much, that I was beginning to think she had lost interest in having sex with me. It turns out that she was thinking the same of me, that maybe I had lost my attraction for her. Our problem was a lack of communication. We finally talked about it and realized that we both had a huge appetite for sex that was going unfulfilled. We couldn't believe how silly we had been not to talk about it. With that last piece of the puzzle put back in place, life couldn't be better for us!
Two nights a week, Mondays and Wednesdays, I give Max a ride to soccer practice and I've gotten into the habit of going to the gym while he's practicing. I'm not muscular at all, I just go to the gym to stay in shape, generally just doing some time on a stationary bike, rowing machine, or treadmill. As is typical for anything routine in life, such as going to the gym at the exact same time, two times a week, you start to notice familiar faces of people that have overlapping routines. And they, in turn, notice you.
I started noticing this younger Latino guy who looked to be in his late 20s or early 30s every time I went to the gym. He is about 6 feet tall, very athletic, nicely defined muscles, dark brown hair, brown eyes, and slightly dark skin. We would notice each other at the front desk, or in the locker room, or just moving to and from different exercise machines. Our schedules must have been very similar because it seemed like I saw him every single time I went to the gym. The first several times we made eye contact, it was just a friendly nod. We later graduated to saying "hi" or "how's it going." Eventually, we became friendly enough to have small conversations about sports games that happened to be playing on one of the TVs around the gym, the weather, or which exercise machines were broken, etc. Finally, one night I told him, "hey, I see you all the time here, but I don't know your name. My name's John." He smiled and said, "hey yeah, cool, I'm Rick, nice to meet you."
Now, we always chat when we see each other, especially if we happen to be in the locker room getting ready to leave the gym. I eventually learned that he is 32 years old and works as a mechanical engineer. He plays soccer on a competitive adult team, lives by himself, and has a girlfriend named Kate.
On a recent Monday night, Max's soccer practice was cancelled, but I went to the gym anyway since it had become my routine. After a half hour on the exercise bike and 20 minutes on the rowing machine, I was ready to call it a night. I ran into Rick in the locker room as he was getting ready to leave. We chatted as usual and I mentioned that I didn't have to pick up my son at practice, so I wasn't in a hurry. He said, "hey, I usually stop at the Starbucks across the street after I'm done here. Wanna join me?" I said, "sure, I could use a coffee. That sounds great!"
At Starbucks, we ordered our drinks and grabbed a table. We sat down and mainly talked about sports. He was telling me about his soccer team and I mentioned that I volunteered as a youth soccer referee. He joked that it was unusual to talk with a white guy that actually knew about soccer. At one point, a pair of attractive young women came in. They ordered some coffee and pastries, and sat down at the other end of the coffee shop. Rick noticed me looking at them and said jokingly, "hey, you're a married guy, you're not supposed to be checking out the talent." I was a little embarrassed that he had noticed me looking at the women. I had to admit that I didn't realize I was being so obvious when checking them out.
He said, "yeah, you should be more careful. I've seen you checking out chicks at the gym too. I don't think you realize how obvious you are about it."
