I had been watching Traci, my wife of 64 years, looking very pensive over these last few days, more than what was normal for this time of year. It was 5:44 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. She quietly, slowly, took the covers off of her and sat up, trying hard not to disturb me because she didn't know I was awake. She slipped on a bathrobe and slippers, left the bedroom, and I heard her make her way down the stairs.
I'm Allan "Nick" Nichols, and my wife, Traci, and I are both 87 years old. We got married a year out of college at 23, raised three fabulous children, lived a rather ordinary life, and with one exception for each of us that I'm aware of, have loved the other without reservation for that entire time. We are the ones fortunate enough to grow old together, and even though our health is still pretty good right now, there's no guarantees on tomorrow, and in the winter of our lives we are happy for each day - each day together.
I gave her a few minutes alone in the kitchen, then I joined her in my robe and slippers. Traci was pouring coffee for herself as I entered, and she turned and asked me if I wanted a cup, too. I nodded. She set the cups at our usual eating spots and we sat there in silence sipping our brew.
"Talk to me, Old Girl," I quietly said to her, using the nickname I had been calling her for about 15 years. "Remember, it's always been about the communication."
She looked at me hesitantly.
"I guess we do need to talk," she said.
That phrase, the cliché husband's worst nightmare, would have caused panic in me up until I reached 70. Now it just brought a small, knowing smile and a slight nod. When you're 87, there's not much that can make you panic.
"I want to tell you something that's not going to make you happy and is probably going to make you very mad, but I want to tell you all of it," she started. "I-I have to tell you all of it. Please don't interrupt me and make this worse. Just remember that I love you, and have always loved you for all of our 64 years. If you want to yell and scream at me when I'm done, well, I guess you've got the right. I'll take whatever you want to dish out."
++++++++++
I had met Traci in college at a small Midwestern university in our freshman years. She was a little bit of a thing, maybe 5 feet, 100 pounds, with a real cute body and a nimble mind. She was a typical small-town kid, with the self-absorption that small-town kids have because they don't know how much they are missing, and with the values of a small-town kid, meaning they have a much better handle on right and wrong than city kids.
I know all this, by the way, because I split my youth between the big city, where my father lived, and a small town, where my mother lived after she split from my dad when I was five.
Traci was a business major, and had a plan mapped out for the future with her "hometown honey." I was a pharmacy major, and had no plan beyond graduating, moving to someplace cool, and make good money with big pharma.
I was smitten the first time I saw Traci in a pair of short-shorts. I'm not sure she realized how short they were, or how tight. All I know is that I was just one of many on campus that needed to adjust my fly when I saw her in those shorts.
Some upperclassman had latched on to her pretty quickly, so I was forced to try my hand at taking her away from another man. She seemed somewhat receptive to my advances at first, but in the end he won and I lost. Oh well, there were always other fish in the sea, and I went off and did my own thing.
Two years later, Mr. Upperclassmen had graduated, and I resolved to take one more shot at her. If she turned me down this time, there would have been no more shots. This time, however, she finally agreed to go out with me, and inside of two months we were living together off-campus in an apartment.
We spent our last two years in college together, and when she landed a job in a small Midwestern city, that's where I located to as well. We made pretty good money, had a great time in the city, and were in love - both physically and mentally. We were incredibly compatible, both in an out of bed. We never did anything really crazy sexually, but we did a lot of the more normal positions. When you're both in your early 20s with health and vitality on your side - and no kids yet - it seems like much of your waking time is spent having sex or thinking about having sex.
Aside from her great ass, Traci had a cute little body with small but well-proportioned tits. While we didn't talk directly about it, from what I gathered her previous sexual experience was limited, and she was somewhat of a puritan in that regard.
I was basically just an average guy in the looks and body department. I was a jogger so I was skinnier than some, but I had a runner's healthy swagger. You just know you're good when you can run from one town to another. I was okay looking, thought I was pretty smart, and could charm the ladies when I wanted to. To be perfectly blunt, I was also pretty average below the waist. Average size, average performance. But like I just said, I was pretty smart, and realized early that the way to be above average was to pay particular attention to my partner's wants and desires and become the best pussy eater this side of a lesbian. Traci, in particular, was putty in my mouth, so to speak.
Life does what it does and you adjust as you go. We started a family after a few years and before we knew it 10 years had passed by and we were the parents of Jack, 7, Lainie, 4, and Ellie, 2. Things were so good in so many ways for us that neither one of us ever complained when the sex dropped off to more normal married-couple numbers - two to four times a week - usually missionary or doggy - and just trying to be quiet enough not to wake the kids.
++++++++++
"It was about two years after Ellie was born," Traci began, almost talking more to the kitchen table than to me. "We were having a staff meeting to introduce several new hires to the various teams. Mary Jo was one of the hires from that group. You remember her, don't you honey?"
Traci looked up at me with a hopeful look, trying to make some sort of a connection. I actually did remember Mary Jo, because she stayed at Taylor Communications for about 30 years, and I got to see both her and her husband at a lot of company functions. I smiled and nodded.
She smiled back weakly, then she put her eyes back down to the table and continued her narrative.
"Roger Scott was also in that group. My, what a dashing young man he was."
She obviously remembered him fondly, because as she mentioned his name, she sat up straighter in her chair and her eyes gained some focus and twinkle, although she never took her stare off the table.
I remembered Roger, too, although not nearly as fondly as I remembered Mary Jo. I kept my face neutral, however, in case Traci peeked up at me. I didn't want to be disconcerting and make her stop talking.
Roger was fresh out of college when he joined the team Traci was on. I remembered him as a big kid - 6-4, 230-pounds - with a small waist, big arms and big chest. He had played linebacker at Central Michigan, and had graduated just a few months back. He was definitely a presence when he walked into a room, Traci had noted at the time, and even though I never had a doubt about my wife's love and fidelity up to that point, the way her eyes kind of glazed over when she talked about him set me on edge.
"You could see by the seriousness of his face that Roger Scott just knew he was going to go far in life, although at that time he was just a 22-year-old rookie trying to learn the ropes. But he paid attention to everything that was said to him, absorbed a lot of information quickly and became a valuable asset within the first six months he was at work," Traci continued.
At first, Traci had mentioned him a lot in her stories about work when we would rehash the day over dinner, or, if the kids had an activity, then later at night as we were winding down. But just when I started to get concerned that there was maybe too much Roger in her stories, he all but disappeared. I did find it odd at the time, but I never pursued it. Big mistake on my part.
"About a year later he was no longer a rookie, and was a good, solid, contributing member to our team. In fact, he and I were almost inseparable at the office as our own team within a team, and I didn't even realize I was developing feelings for him. Several of the other women on the team caught it, but only Myra had the guts to ask me to my face if there was something go on. I told her no, but then I began to realize what was indeed happening. I knew it was wrong, and I knew I should have done something about it, but for some strange reason, I didn't.
"Maybe it was the fact that a young, good-looking guy was paying attention to a mother of three. I know - you always told me I looked good and always complimented me, but it's different when an outsider does it. Maybe I needed the gratification, the ego boost. But I was definitely in a groove with him. We started doing lunches just the two of us, then the occasional dinner, always at someplace quiet and out of the way. I gave you various excuses like girls' night out, and you were such a sweetheart about it. I felt guilty at first, then it gradually got easier. I mean, we were just two friends having dinner. You wouldn't have thought twice if I had gone out with one of the girls ..."
I sat almost stone-faced, trying to give away as little as possible. She needed to finish this story, and I needed her to finish as well.
"I don't know fully what he was thinking, but I felt like a teenager with a schoolgirl crush when I was alone with him. We gradually progressed from just talking to talking intimately to making out passionately. Then, one Friday night, we both had a bit more to drink that we should have, and we wound up back at his apartment. I won't give you all the gory details, but I broke my vows to you that night several times, and if you would have asked me right then and there, I would have told you it was the best sex I ever had ..."
I broke at that point. Tears started streaming down my cheeks.
Traci stopped at that point and looked at me, pity clearly in her eyes. I didn't want her pity, and I certainly didn't want her to stop talking.
