"Happy anniversary, darling." My wife Joan raised a glass of champagne above the table in our favorite French restaurant. The candlelight glinted on the bubbles in the wine. I touched my glass to hers. "Happy anniversary--has it really been five years?"
"Mmmmm. . . Five great ones--and many more to come, if I have anything to say about it." She smiled and sipped her champagne, then blew me a kiss across the table, giving her long blonde hair a toss. Joan is tall and statuesque, with a face and body that supermodels would kill for. Tonight she was wearing a backless red dress that covered her like body paint and made it obvious that she neither wore nor needed a bra (when she stood up, a close observer might have noticed that she wasn't wearing panties either--she says she hates feeling confined). The eyes of every man in the place were on her, and I felt a thrill of excitement at the thought that they could look and admire and wonder, but I was the one who would get to peel off that skin-tight crimson sheath and hold her perfect body tonight.
Not that I'm possessive--it's the second marriage for both of us, and we've both learned the hard way that it's jealousy, not adultery, that destroys marriages. We've both had flings, but we both know that nothing is going to tear us apart--we fit too well, in every way.
Suddenly her eyes widened. "Sweetheart, isn't that Leslie?"
"It can't be. . ." I turned my head to follow her gaze, and saw the small, dark-haired woman being shown to a table. ". . . but it is. What's she doing on the West Coast?"
"Go say hello, darling."
"No, it's our anniversary. This is just for us."
"Oh, go on. If you don't and she sees you it'll just be embarrassing. Look, they're taking away the other place setting. She's eating alone. Why don't you ask her to join us?"
"You want my ex-wife to have dinner with us on our anniversary?" I was skeptical--and a bit uncomfortable with the idea.
"You know I've always wanted to meet her, and I might never get another chance. Go on!" She laughed, enjoying my discomfort.
Leslie and I were married in college, and had three wonderful, passionate years together in New York. Then my career in the wine trade took me out to the West Coast, and hers in public relations kept her back East. We tried to have a commuter marriage while we worked out a way to live together, but neither of us could manage the long weeks of celibacy between visits, and neither of us was devious enough to conceal the evidence of our other lovers. We tried to be accepting and tolerant, but weren't mature enough for that. When we could no longer stand our own or the other's jealousy, we got divorced, but we managed somehow to come out on the other side of the ordeal as friends. We'd kept in touch, but after I married Joan the phone calls, stopped, the letters became less frequent, and for the last two years we hadn't exchanged so much as a Christmas card. Joan had never met Leslie, but she'd seen her picture in my college yearbook and had asked a lot of questions--all of which I'd managed to avoid answering in any detail.
I shrugged, got up and walked over to Leslie's table. She was studying the menu and didn't see me coming. She looked as great as ever, with the dark hair and complexion she inherited from her Puerto Rican father and the full lips and high cheekbones from her Jewish mother. She was several inches shorter than Joan, more petite and smaller-breasted--I remembered how they just fit the palms of my hands when I took her from behind. My heart was racing, and my cock remembering things that my brain hadn't quite got to yet as I approached her.
She looked up, recognized me, started to get up, then changed her mind. "Dave! It's great to see you. How are you?"
"Oh, I'm alright. How could you come to Portland without telling me?"
"Oh, it's a business trip--one of our clients just opened a branch here and they want us to handle publicity. There just wasn't time for anything else. I was supposed to fly back tonight, but they overbooked my flight. I'm going on vacation as soon as I get back, so I decided to let myself be bumped and take the free ticket."
"Well, why don't you join us?" I gestured toward our table.
She looked over at Joan, who was playing with her hors d’oeuvre and trying hard not to watch us. "Oh, I don't want to intrude."
"You're not." She hesitated. "Really--it was Joan's idea. If you don't come, she'll think I said something to scare you off, and she'll get suspicious." I grinned to show it was just a joke--I hoped.
Leslie shrugged, smiled, and headed for the other table, while I signaled the waiter. I introduced my first and second wives to each other, ordered another bottle of champagne, and hoped for the best--without being sure what the best might be.
"Do you guys come here often?" Leslie asked. "Oh, mostly for special occasions," Joan replied. "But we make as many of those as we can."
"What's the occasion tonight?"
"It's our anniversary." I thought Joan seemed just a little smug.
"What a coincidence! It's ours too!" Leslie flashed her most dazzling smile at me. I felt myself blushing, and believe me, that's something I don't do much any more.