The petite, fair-skinned young woman, bright-eyed and raven-haired, hesitated a moment, choosing her words carefully. She was just back from the gym, and wore a pair of close-fitting sweats and sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, leaning against the couch in a recuperative slump with her hair messily tied up in a small pony tail. Distractedly flipping through the pages of a magazine, she glanced up at her husband seated on the end of the sofa. The television was on and Alan's attention was divided as usual.
They were a young couple. Tabitha, recently turned twenty-two, maintained the lean, supple body of the teenaged dancer she had been. She danced and cheered throughout high school and kept it up through college until her graduation a few months back. Though outwardly modest, she was every bit as proud of her figure as her husband was. She knew she had the lithe, toned body older women envied and men of every age desired to possess. One could tell by the way she carried herself, especially around groups of men. She held her own, flashing that winsome smile and capturing them one at a time with her clear blue eyes.
The couple had met and begun to date seriously during Tabitha's second semester at the university, marrying shortly thereafter. Alan was a decent-looking man of thirty-four, a native of the sleepy college town where Tabitha had come to study, and had been out of school since before they had met. Though she had only just earned her degree, she was already behind in the hunt for a job. Having no immediate prospects elsewhere, she had consented to Alan's suggestion that they settle down just outside of town where they now shared an apartment.
"Well?" said Alan. "How did it go, Tabby?"
"It was fun...interesting," she delicately answered.
The subject of conversation, and of Tabitha's unease, was her four-year high school reunion. She had returned from her weekend trip home only the night before.
"Did you see Molly and Kim?" Alan asked, referring to Tabitha's closest friends who now lived and worked several hours away in Baltimore, Maryland.
"Yeah, it was so good finally catching up with them. We relived some wild times once the drinks started to flow."
"That's great," he said, pausing for emphasis, "I just hope you three didn't reenact too many of them."
"Don't worry, babe. It was innocent fun. I guess we've grown out of the crazy stuff by now," Tabitha sighed.
She was lingering on what to say next when her husband interrupted. "Sounds like a lot of fun."
"Yeah, I'm glad I ended up going."
"But what was so 'interesting' about it?"
"Oh," Tabitha thought a moment, "just some people who showed up that I didn't expect to see."
Alan glanced from the television screen to his wife and smiled. "Anyone I should be jealous of?"
She looked up for a moment, then back at the magazine she was fumbling with. "That's silly, babe," she lied. "Mostly it was just this guy I almost forgot about."
"Have you told me about him before?"
"I don't think so." She paused, presumably distracted by the magazine.
"Well? Does this blast from your past have a name?" Alan seemed to have forgotten the television for the moment.
Tabitha cocked her eye at him, came out with it. "He's Wayne's older brother."
"Wayne...you mean that jock you used to date in high school?" Alan felt a momentary tremor of jealousy. "Was he there, too?"
"No, Wayne didn't show. That's why it was so strange when Sean arrived. He was already entering law school when Wayne and I started dating. God, that was like six years ago."
"Law school? Sounds like he was on the ball."
"Yeah," Tabitha continued, her nervousness showing despite herself. "He showed up to the reunion in a brand new Porsche, dressed to kill. He was really showing off."
"But my little Tabby isn't impressed by that sort of dick measuring, is she?" Alan teased, raising an eyebrow.
"Well..." she said slowly, catching her husband's eye flirtatiously, "I didn't have the chance to measure it myself..."
"Was that for lack of trying?"
Tabitha, relieved by her husband's apparent lack of insecurity, rose with a smile and placed the magazine on the table next to the couch. In a flash she grabbed for the remote control in Alan's hand and wrestled it away, turning off the television just in time as he dragged the giggling girl onto his lap, bending her thrashing body over his knees and working his fingers under the cotton waistband of her lightweight yoga pants.
"No!!" she yelled as he swiftly yanked them down to expose her thong and taut, jiggling buns. With a swift, open-handed smack across those cream-colored cheeks, Tabitha's giggling slowed down to a low growl.
"'No'?" her husband joked, parroting her and rubbing the freshly smacked, burning spot. "So you did try, then."
"If I had wanted to measure him up," she returned matter-of-factly, leaning on one elbow and turning to look squarely at Alan, "I wouldn't have had much trouble while I was dating his brother."
Alan's eyes widened. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded suspiciously.
"Mmm," Tabitha considered, "let's forget it, okay?"
But Alan wasn't letting her get away with it. "Uh-uh," he said. "You can't drop the subject just like that, not after that kind of hint. I knew that you and Wayne were pretty serious for awhile, but I didn't even know he had a brother. Now it sounds like you had a thing with
him
..."
Alan couldn't help visualizing what that implied. His jealousy began to shade towards something else.
Staring into space, he continued, "This guy Sean was what, in his late-twenties? You were only a high school student?" His expression darkened a little. "Spill it, Tabby."
She climbed off his lap and straddled him, brought her face an inch or two from his. She studied him thoughtfully. Her watchful eyes clouded over as Alan's hand went automatically to her hips. He gave a little squeeze, holding his wife firmly in place, wondering at the sudden change in her behavior. She wasn't usually this secretive about anything. She hadn't even said what was on her mind yet but here she was squirming on his lap. What had her so hot and bothered all of a sudden? What was she hiding?
Alan was already astir, swelling beneath her with rapidly growing curiosity.
"We didn't have 'a thing.' Not like what you have in mind, anyway." She blushed a little. "Please, let's just forget I said anything!"
"Not a chance."