The party was packed with people, scattered throughout the large, suburban mansion, 20 and 30 somethings dressed in the carefully casual manner that was meant to look good without seeming like they were actually trying to impress. They were playing pool or ping pong and watching TV and there was food and booze and dancing and laughing and everyone seemed to be having a raucously good time.
Stuck in the corner of the main room, was, a tall, thin man with dark, curly hair and a handsome, open face who stood nervously looking over the shoulder of an aggressive, tipsy redhead who was making it clear that she was available for any sort of fun at or after the party. But the man just continued to nod absentmindedly, trying, evidently, to extricate himself from a conversation that, at another time, he might have initiated himself. The last few words of a slurred question struck his consciousness and he realized he had to answer.
"...so is it a date then?" He glanced at the redhead with a slightly panicked look.
"Uh...yeah...sure..."
"Can we take your car? I'm...um...probably shouldn't drive." He resumed searching the room over her shoulder.
"Hey...look, I don't want to be rude, but I've really got to find Jason. Could you...uh...text me or something with what you want to do and I'll catch up later?"
A look of surprise overcame the redhead's foggy expression. "Jason? Jason Bright? He came to a party? I thought he'd become a monk or something."
"Yeah...I...uh...talked him into coming and now I can't find him, so I've really got to..."
Just then, a pretty blond with curly hair walked by and the man suddenly gave a slight lurch toward her.
"Hey...hey Cara...hey Cara..."
The blond turned and her face lit up with a broad smile. She nodded to the beers in his hand and raised her eyebrows expectantly.
"Hey Brian. Did you get one of those beers for me?"
He gave her a slightly incredulous look as though he didn't understand what she'd said and then abruptly blurted out his own question.
"Hey...where's Jason? I went for beers and haven't been able to find him since."
The blonde's smile faded and she gestured with her head toward a room off the side. "He was in the entertainment room maybe 15 minutes ago. You might check there." She smiled again. "Why, is he your date or something?"
Brian shot her a level look and gave a brief snort of a laugh. "You'd probably like that wouldn't you Cara? Well, no such luck. It's just that it took me forever to talk him into coming out for some fun, so I'm just a little nervous about him having a good time."
He turned to the redhead that seemed to be a little put out that her domination of Brian had been hijacked by the pretty blonde. "Hey...look...really...text me about what you want to do. I've got to look for Jason here, ok?"
The redhead gave a drunken little pout and nodded her head with muted enthusiasm. "OK. I'll catch you after the..."
But Brian was gone before she finished, aggressively making his way through the crowd toward the entertainment room, where he found a dozen or so people, slouched on the couch, sitting Indian style on the floor or milling around while a music video played on the large screen TV that dominated the room.
He looked around briefly and then caught the attention of a jovial looking fat man who was swaying awkwardly to the music, one hand holding a drink and the other full of potato chips.
"Hey...Bud...have you seen Jason?"
"Jason?"
"Yeah...Jason Bright? He was in here a couple of minutes ago."
"Oh...yeah man. I'm pretty sure he left. Got up all of a sudden and pushed his way out of here like he had to barf or something."
"Left the room?"
"No man...right out the front door."
Brian stood there for a minute, shaking his head slowly trying to make sense of what the fat man had said.
"What...why...what the hell happened?"
"I don't know man. When the game ended we changed channels to some movie and sort of watched that for a couple of minutes when he just up and left..."
"Movie? What movie?"
"Oh...you know...the old one with Dustin Hoffman. The Graduate. But we didn't see much of it 'cause it was right at the end when we tuned in..."
"The end?"
"Yeah...you know...that whole wedding scene where Hoffman comes in and bangs on the glass and the girl runs off with him."
Brian's face began to turn red, starting with a faint shade of pink and progressing, rapidly until he looked something like a tomato with human features. Then slowly he began to throw words at the fat man, carefully enunciated with increasing force and volume for maximum effect.
"You tuned into a movie in which the bride leaves the groom for another man...at...the...fucking...altar, with Jason Bright sitting there watching; the first...fucking... time he comes out of his crappy little apartment in months? You're more of an idiot than I could ever imagine."
*****************
Jason Bright was lying on his side, taking in the sight of his sleeping fiancé. She was breathing softly, rhythmically, each puff of air from her mouth gently ruffling a tuft of straw blond hair that had fallen across her face. To most observers, Penny Miller was a small, attractive woman who was perhaps a few pounds overweight with facial features that were just a little too coarse to be considered classically beautiful. But here, with morning sunlight striking her clear, pale skin to give it a sort of glowing translucence, she looked like an absolute angel to Jason, a gift of love from God himself.
By all accounts, Bright had been tremendously successful in life to that point. He'd done well in high school, excelling at sports and in the classroom, graduating at the top of his class and then managed nearly perfect grades in a double major of finance and statistics before his masters in economics at the Chicago Business School. After that he breezed into a job at one of the top Chicago trading firms and had moved steadily up the corporate ladder with increasing responsibility and increasing money.
But, he'd never really felt like life was turning out the way he wanted until he met Penny, and that was because, despite all of his success in business and athletics, he'd never had anything that resembled a satisfying romantic relationship. In high school he'd been a nervous teenager around girls, overly anxious, absolutely uncertain about how to approach them to talk, let alone form a relationship. He developed some confidence in college when a couple of aggressive girls saw a good thing and wouldn't allow his insecurities get in the way, but still, this only lead to a series of superficial associations that, with or without sex, didn't amount to anything significant in Jason's mind, a pattern that seemed to continue through business school and for a couple of years into his new job.
But then, he met Penny and everything changed. She was easy to be with, vivacious, talkative, attractive, without pretense or conceit. She wanted quiet, relaxing evenings, a house with a picket fence and children, and Jason wanted her. And so, with a sense of comfortable inevitability, their relationship smoothly developed and strengthened, from casual dating, to nights capped with earnest, passionate lovemaking that increased in frequency such that practicality eventually required them to move in together. And then, on a warm summer evening in a small, neighborhood park by the lake, Jason took a knee and with faintly trembling hands offered a ring to Penny who accepted with tears, a smile and an enthusiastic hug.
In the eight months since then, plans had been made, invitations had been sent, dresses picked out and a church in Penny's home town in southern Illinois had been reserved for a date that was now only 6 days away.
Jason smiled at the recollections and leaned over to gently kiss Penny on the cheek. Her eyes fluttered open and she yawned and then smiled lazily, giving off a contented little moan as she arched her back, the covers falling away to expose her breasts and pale, pink nipples.
"Hey baby." She half whispered, smiling back at him as she smoothly ran a hand down his naked flank to his hip and then to his morning erection. "Did you sleep ok?"
He nodded and started to answer but then was brought up short, responding to her gentle squeeze and stroke, and could only let out a light gasp in response. He shimmied closer, enveloping her in his arms as he kissed her lips, her neck, her chest and then her breasts and nipples, licking and sucking until she whimpered softly, thrusting her pelvis forward to him. He pressed his thigh between her legs, feeling the wetness increase as he pushed against her, retraced his kisses back up to her neck and then to her lips again. She moved her legs apart and rolled to her back, pulling him on top of her, returning his kisses passionately, breathing harder, raggedly. He moved a hand down her back and then over her hip, and then slid it between his thigh and her crotch and then cupped and rubbed her aggressively, pushing and exploring her with his fingers, the movements reinforced by the pressure from his thigh.
It wasn't long before Penny reached down and placed her hands on his hips and began pulling Jason inside her legs which she had moved even farther apart. He broke the kiss and pushed himself off the bed to facilitate her unspoken request. He paused to look at her face, flushed, excited, she was-as always-beautiful to him. She took the hesitation to be a form of teasing and gasped out a whispered demand.
"Please...please...I need it now."
Jason nodded, his own desire essentially overwhelming his ability to speak, moved himself between her legs, reached back and grabbed Penny's hands, extending them above her head, and watched her face as he entered her slowly. Her expression turned nearly desperate and she thrust her bottom half forward, and, with a simultaneous gasp uttered by both lovers, completely encased Jason within her.
A look of lustful relief formed on her face as they began to push in and out of each other, the speed and power of their efforts increasing with each thrust until they reached a nearly frantic pace. Finally, covered in a thin film of newly formed sweat, Penny began to arch her back and let out a long, low moan, signaling her orgasm and resulting in a sensation that made it impossible for Jason to prevent his own as he emptied himself into her with a final series of long, aggressive lunges.
