Robert said, "John, you're our guest, you can sit up front", as we walked through the parking deck of short-term airport parking towards a silver minivan.
"Actually, Bob, as your guest, I was thinking I would sit in the back with Anne so that we could catch up on old times." I said, using the nickname that I knew he didn't much like.
Being this big a prick didn't come easily to me, but, I had to admit, it was kind of fun. Anne and I had dated about 20 years before, and we had that rare kind of relationship in which we kept in touch only occasionally but still fell easily into conversation about virtually anything. In many ways we had made a good couple. Our problem wasn't that we didn't have things in common, and it certainly wasn't lack of sexual chemistry, which we had in droves. Instead, if anything, it was that we were too alike. Two headstrong people are bound not too last. There is something to be said for the old saying "opposites attract." We had the good sense to break it off before it blew up and ended badly.
Anyhow, Anne and I had recently had occasion to talk in order to discuss whether the other was planning on attending our upcoming class reunion. I knew Anne's "down in the dumps" voice, as rare as it made an appearance, and asked what was bothering her. She told me that she was having a case of the blahs. Her life was feeling dull, and her relationship with her husband of 15 years had lost its spark. In general, she said it felt a little like she was trapped in her own personal version of the movie "Groundhog Day." With respect to her marriage, she said she loved her husband, but sex was becoming rarer and was ever predictable and dispassionate. She wondered if he was thinking of straying, she was thinking of straying, and it was just an all around bad scene. I knew she wouldn't cheat. It wasn't her style, but she might walk out on him. She did say that her one breakthrough was that she had gotten Robert to admit that his most common fantasy was watching her get fucked by another man or men, but she wasn't sure how that information helped her build her relationship with her husband. I asked if she knew what got him off with respect to that fantasy, as there are a few permutations of the "other men having sex with my wife" fantasy. She said she thought she did.
I continued to pepper her with questions, asking if she wanted to stick with the marriage. She said yes. She had many good reasons to stay with him, but one not to. That one, that she felt there was no passion, was enough to make her miserable though. I asked about whether she had considered spicing things up a bit. She said yes, but she wasn't sure how to proceed. I won't go on about our conversations, suffice it to say the unfolding of events will tell the tale for itself.
I opened the big sliding door on the side of the minivan after Robert popped the locks, and I held a hand palm up in a gentlemanly manner to assist Anne into the vehicle. I then got into the van right behind her and slid the door shut hard. Robert loaded my bag in the back and then walked around to the other side, and got into the driver's seat. Anne and I sat side-by-side in the forward most bench seat. We sat right behind the space between the driver's and front passenger's seats. There was room for three on the seat, but we sat close enough together that if the third person had been a sumo wrestler, he would still have fit handily. This was going to be the most fun I'd ever had helping out a friend in need. It sure as hell beat moving a couch or painting a bedroom.
Anne remained an extremely attractive woman despite two decades of the passage of time. It wouldn't be true to say she hadn't changed a bit in twenty years, but it was fair to say that she had aged well. She still had tawny brown hair, but it was much shorter these days and she had lighter, almost blond, highlights put in that accentuated her cute facial features. She had become more buxom, but carried it oh so well. It would require no acting skill to show some enthusiasm for having my way with her.
As Robert drove down the access roads from the airport that would lead us onto the Interstate, I took Anne's face between my hands and pulled her in close for a kiss. Her hair was soft and silky along the backs of my hands, and her fragrant scent aroused me. We made no attempt to disguise the moist and occasionally slightly smacking noises of our open-mouthed kisses, and, in fact, Anne let out a few low moans as she exhaled sighs.
Still, with the road noise and the intense concentration needed to get in the correct lanes, it took a while for Robert to notice what was going on behind him. It hadn't occurred to me that we were taking our lives into our own hands because Robert might just get distracted and crash, until I felt a severe lurching swerve as we accelerated down the ramp onto the highway. Robert recovered control of the vehicle.
"What the hell?" I said, genuinely concerned that we were about to crash.
"Sorry about that. My mistake." Robert said. He didn't give the slightest indication that he was enraged.
Now I, like most men - I suspect, would presumably be pulling the car over onto the shoulder about now with the intention of leaping behind me and beating the living hell out of the man making out with my wife. However, tellingly, Robert was apologizing for his bad driving.
