Here's something different: a Loving Wives adventure with an action character, accompanied by his new wife and an old girlfriend. While the names of institutions and businesses used in this account are fictitious; many of the other details are real.
Ancient Gods
So much had changed in just eighteen months, all of it for the better.
Wesley Bruce Arundel- 'Jaguar' to everyone he knew- couldn't help but smile, staring at the framed Machu Picchu photograph on this desk. It was taken at the ancient Peruvian astronomy platform, the Hitching Post of the Sun, and showed him holding up Marina's hand, the couple gazing into the morning sky. There he had asked her to stay with him as long as the sun god Inti shone down.
Jaguar knew that by going with his instincts he had done the right thing. From a tedious life on the road with seemingly endless Andean Experience tours, he had settled into a much better existence. Marina was at the centre of it.
His desk at the National Archaeology Museum in Lima overflowed with papers and reports, but that photo was always assured a prominent place. Marina had come into his life at just the right time- for both of them- and that remarkable woman had changed everything. Jaguar was a different man now.
But not in every way. Though no longer leading groups to tourist sites across Peru, he was still completely absorbed in the ancient past. In his new role as Chief of Acquisitions at the national museum, Jaguar was responsible for acquiring precious pieces for their extensive collection. Given his experience and university graduate studies, this was right up his alley.
In Acquisitions, he watched carefully for leads; researched everything he could find about any artifacts which might be available; then tracked them down. After only six months in the job, he had already landed a few prime items for the museum's extensive collection.
The role was a perfect fit with his new life with the former Marina Rasmussen. A year and a half ago she was just another American tourist on his bus. Her husband had returned to Wisconsin, badly injured in a fall- some say that Jaguar's incantation to the ancient Chavin jaguar god was responsible. In any case, the Rasmussens' marriage was already on the rocks, and Wayne's sudden departure was a way out.
Jaguar was ready for a life change himself. He was tired of living on the road, and since the tragic death of his fiancee twenty years before, Jaguar had made no lasting connection with women. Instead, he was like a sailor, with a girl in every port. He carried a painful memory of his lost love, caught in a shootout by rival Peruvian political gangs as they strolled one evening in Lima.
Marina's soft, kind nature had gradually captured his heart, leading to that defining moment atop Machu Picchu at the end of her tour. Like some snap decisions, it had been a wise one. The Rasmussens' divorce came through fairly quickly, neither of them voicing objection. Wayne was as eager to move on back in Wisconsin as Marina was to bury the past.
The new couple shared Jaguar's downtown apartment and every other part of their life together. Marina's university background, combined with her outgoing personality, had landed her a part-time position at the national museum as an English-language docent. She led tour groups through the museum's collections, sometimes working with Elena Rodriguez to assemble artifacts for special-interest groups.
Yes, the same Elena Rodriguez who had a sometimes intimate history with Jaguar. The same one who had taken him aside during his last group tour of the museum, asking him to recall the good times, the smoke and the sex. Jag and Elena remembered, but they weren't telling now, and would keep it that way.
He took another lingering look at the framed photograph, smiling again at the memory of that defining day. Then his office phone rang, Elena on the line from her own private space one floor down.
"Morning Jag. Feel like something exciting today?"
"Sorry Elena. You know those days are finished. I'm a happy...."
"I know, I know. That's all behind us now that you that Marina are so hot for each other."
"Good. And you work with her now too. Small world, isn't it."
"Yes. She is a fine lady, Jag. I must say, between Marina and me, you have very good taste in women! But you still might feel like something exciting and different."
"Elena.... Stop that."
"Exciting in archaeology. You didn't think I was coming on to you?" she teased.
"I wondered.... So, what's archaeologically exciting, Elena?"
"Moche decapitator artifacts, that's what."
"Tell me more. I'm very interested."
Jaguar knew that the Moche people had dominated northern Peru almost two millenia earlier, a culture with surprisingly advanced technical abilities to work with ceramics and metals. Like many ancient Andean peoples, right up through the Inca, they practiced human sacrifice to honour their gods. Moche artifacts are rare and precious objects.
"There's a rumour that someone up in Lambayque region has come across some very rare Moche decapitator god material. I'm not sure if it's ceramic, or something in metal. My word! Imagine if it was an actual knife used in the sacrificial ritual! That would be priceless!"
"So do you think I should go up there to check it out?"
"Both of us, this is so important. But first you and I will need to work together to narrow this down and see if anything substantiates the rumour. I believe there are at least two digs going on in the region. One by Phoenix College- they've been there a couple of seasons now- and another one by a private company, Olympia Research."
"Elena, you know how it is with private companies. They want to sell anything they find and make a big profit."
"That's why we need to act fast, Jag. Of course, we believe that artifacts are part of Peru's national heritage, and that they're protected by our laws. But if that company finds anything of value, you know they'll get it out of the country as fast as they can, and into the hands of private buyers."
"Moche decapitator stuff would sell for big dollars! So, yes, we need to get on this. I'll start working up some plans right now, Elena."
"Let's meet at lunch to set out some timelines, Jag."
"OK. One o'clock, upstairs in the cafeteria."
****
Jaguar had gone home that evening excited by the prospect of some field work. It was difficult for a man who had roamed Peru for almost twenty years in his tour bus to settle into a desk job, interesting as it was. Marina was home and immediately saw the spark in her man.
"Good day at the office, was it?" she commented.
"Yes. Elena and I are going up into northern Peru, Moche country, to track down rumours of artifact discoveries there."
"I've never been there. Your tours didn't go north of Chavin de Huantar. Could you take me with you?"
"I don't know, Marina. I'd have to clear it with Elena."
"She's not your boss. I know that. Wouldn't it be fun be be on the road together like our tour? That's how we met. We could do it all again."
"All of it?"
"Yes. All of it!"
Both of them remembered the great sex on several nights of that tour. They were aflame with the other, and the fire still burned hot for them. Jaguar smiled at the memory of it.
"Maybe you could come with us, if it's OK with Elena."
That night, they relived past experience from that trip. Marina wore a sheer gown to bed, just to be sure that Jaguar hadn't forgotten those days when they were new. Her lithe, athletic body shone through the filmy fabric in the dim light of their bedroom. Marina saw by his cock that it was already affecting him, just as she had expected.
The gown wasn't on for long, as Jaguar quickly loosened the ties which were keeping her naked flesh from him. Then he devoured her body like his namesake, the fierce jungle beast. Her soft curves were his tonight and he was hungry. He kissed her neck and trailed down to her stiff nipples, pulling at them with fevered lips. Marina tilted her head back, sighing with pleasure, offering him all of herself.