The prequels to this story are titled A Island in a Wind Dark Sea
***
The telephone on Maggie's desk in her home office rang. She picked it up. "Hello."
"Is this Sheila?" the voice asked. "It's Charles." A pause. "From the beach in Greece. Nine years ago." Maggie had been called "Sheila" during her on the Greek islands. An island name eliminated inhibitions.
"Charles!" Maggie exclaimed. Her delight turned into puzzlement. "How did you find me after all this time?"
"It wasn't hard after that article in The New York Times about your work in Afghanistan. That brought you to mind for both of us."
"Both of us?"
"You remember, Ian -- who called himself Rory?"
"Yes, of course. He named me Sheila -- which I didn't know at the time meant 'loose woman' in Australian. Well, I was loose all right!" She laughed. How could she forget her torrid 24-hour affair with young Rory on the Greek island of Skiathos? Or for that matter her three day group sex marathon with Charles and others on Skopelos? "Where are you?" she asked.
"We're both in Australia, working at the University in Perth, but we're planning a reunion on Skopelos. Our wives will be with us. Oscar and Alicia will be joining us from Sweden."
Maggie's heart sank. Rory was married! He and Charles were bringing their wives! "Oh," she said, "It sounds fun, but I don't want to be a fifth wheel, and my husband isn't into this sort of thing." That "thing" she thought to herself was a lot of sex with a lot of people.
"Husband? Are you still married to the preacher?"
"No, we divorced six years ago. I have a new husband -- as of four months ago."
"Congratulations!" Charles tried to be enthusiastic, "Well, I understand if you don't feel that you can come." His voice brightened. "You wouldn't be the only single. Fiona, you remember her -- the fat Englishwoman -- is coming. There's no obligation. Just drop in for a drink and a swim." He paused. "If that's all you want."
Maggie was cautious. "Do your wives know about me and you and Rory?" She laughed. "And Oscar and Alicia and Fiona. I can't believe the things we did!"
"Our wives know -- we're swingers among our little group, but only our little group. There's no worry about that."
Maggie thought, "How in the world did I, a preacher's wife from Kansas, get involved in a swingers group on a Greek island? Why am I, recently married to a nice man, even entertaining the idea of a reunion? I'm 46 years old. Charles must be 50. Young Rory would be 34 by now. Who knows what they are like after all these years?"
She reminisced to herself. "It was the best few days of my life: going naked all day, every day, swimming to the caves, fucking Rory, Charles, Oscar, Alicia, and Fiona, drinking beer, and eating octopus. It was the dawn of my sexual liberation! I found freedom!"
To Charles she said, "I'll think about it. I just don't know if I can join you."
"Please do think about it," he answered. "We'd love to see you. We've rented a big house on Skopelos for the first two weeks in August. There's plenty of room. Sand, sea, beach, old friends all waiting for you."
They chatted about their respective lives. Charles was a professor of archaeology, as was Rory. Maggie was a "disaster junkie," traveling world-wide to help the victims of humanitarian disasters caused by war, earthquake, tsunami, or hurricane. She lived in Washington, D.C. with her new husband when she was not traveling from disaster to disaster. Going to Greece wouldn't be a problem. She could arrange to take a few days off and stopover while Rory and Charles and the group were on Skopelos.
When Maggie hung up the telephone, she put her head in her hands and agonized. "Oh, my God! It's so tempting." If it is possible to love someone you only know one day and, moreover, is 12 years younger, it was Rory for her. She had dreamed about him and now he had reappeared in her life just when she resolved to go down the path of being a good companion and wife to her husband. She loved her husband, but not sexually. He was a straight arrow, kind, generous, honest, and loyal. A widower, he had only had sex with two women during his 46 years: his former wife and her. She, by contrast, had bedded 30 men and along her sexual pathway she evolved from being a shy receptacle of male sperm to a confident and assertive lover, but she had had no lovers except her husband since their marriage. He didn't want to know about her previous love life, and she didn't tell him.
"What's the harm of it?" she asked herself. "I'll spend a couple of days on Skopelos and go happily on my way. Or maybe everything will be strange. And sex? Who knows how that might go after all these years?" She opened up her desk drawer and found a small mirror and looked at herself. "I don't look 46," she told herself, but she felt the crow's feet radiating from her eyes and the loose skin on her jaws. She felt a breast. "My dinky little tits don't sag." She patted her rear. "My ass is firm. My legs are still slender. I could go naked without being ashamed." She pulled out a breast and looked at it. "I'm so white! The reflected light from my tits could blind someone!" She chuckled at her witticism.
During the years after she overcame the strictures of her religious upbringing, Maggie had adopted the philosophy of "If it doesn't hurt anybody, it's not wrong." Did that philosophy still apply? An indiscretion in Greece would not likely find its way back to her husband. For a month she wrestled in her mind with the consequences of a vacation with old lovers in Greece. Finally, she made a decision and e-mailed Charles. "Is the invitation to visit you still good? Please tell me if it will be uncomfortable meeting your wives and I won't come. Otherwise, I'll arrive on Skopelos on August 7 and stay two or three days. Love. Sheila" She hearkened back to the past by using her island name.
A few hours later, she received a reply. "I'm delighted to hear from you. All of us, including our wives, look forward to seeing you. We'll have a great time. Love. Charles."
***
Maggie completed an exhausting visit to several African countries by flying all night to Athens and taking a hydrofoil to Skopelos, arriving mid-day. She had dressed for the occasion in shorts, sandals, and a short-sleeved man's shirt knotted below her breasts. She had debated wearing a bra and decided not. It was hot, an island, and a holiday. She liked the cleft between her breasts revealed by the unfastened button on the front of her shirt. She wore her light-brown hair, streaked with gray, in a pony-tail. She was too old to wear a pony-tail, but it was trouble-free and casual. She hoped that she looked like a woman comfortable with herself -- although she was so nervous that her hands shook.
Maggie had also shaven her pubic hair -- just in case she decided to go nude. Or do other things. The others in the group had all been shaven in those long ago days.