My wife Claire is a pretty little thing. Even after ten years of marriage, she's still as cute as she was when I first met her. Her shoulder length blonde hair still has the same lustre and her green eyes still have the same mischievous sparkle that drew me to her that night when I met her in our first year at college. She's no longer the slim and petite type that she was, but I love her fuller figure now; her curvy hips and butt and her considerably bigger 38DD breasts are the icing on the cake. Claire doesn't have a supermodel figure, but she still turns heads when in her bikini on holiday, or walking down the street in skirts or revealing tops.
So I wasn't surprised when she told me that one of her old school boyfriends had 'kind of hit on her' via Facebook. A few days before, she'd received an invite to a school reunion. Some of the old pupils had tried unsuccessfully tried to arrange a ten year reunion five years before, and were trying again now it had reached fifteen years.
This time, the response had been pretty good, so it looked it would go ahead. Claire hadn't committed to going, but one of her old friends, a chubby guy called Mark, had been excited to find her on Facebook and they'd been chatting a little bit since then. He asked her to meet for coffee, which she said she'd think about and she was cool with, until he said they could go to his after, if they got on well. She showed me the message, and asked me if I thought he was hitting on her, and I had to admit that it looked that way. She said she'd be flattered if it someone better looking, and while I looked on, she sent him a message pointing out that she was happily married and apologising if she'd given him the wrong idea.
That was the end of it, as far as I knew. She said he'd replied a bit awkwardly, promising to apologise to both me and her at the reunion, if we were still going and Claire wrote back that of course she wouldn't let a misunderstanding stop her from going.
Out of the two of us, I'm the eldest by eighteen months, so although we went to the same school, I don't know many of her old friends, other than a few looking vaguely familiar and a couple of them had names that I'd heard of, mostly because they had grown up and still lived in the same area as us. None of the select few that had made a success of themselves and moved away from our small town looked like returning to celebrate the fifteen year reunion, so Claire felt comfortable enough to go. No one likes going to these things, only to feel intimidated or upstaged by all your old peers who've moved on to bigger and better things.
The date of the reunion came around pretty quick, as things seem to, the older you get. Claire was already getting ready by the time I got home from work, not surprising in the least as it takes her a couple of hours to get ready to go anywhere, even just to the local shop. She was wearing a cobalt blue dress that she'd bought especially for the occasion. It was just above the knee in length, showing off her smooth legs and showed a hint of cleavage on the top half. Her blonde hair was clipped up in a bun, showing off her neck and her make-up was gorgeous. Smokey eyes and lipstick in a shade of red that was bright but just on the right side of slutty.
"How do I look?" she smiled at me and did a little twirl.
I replied by wolf-whistling. "I'll be the envy of every man there," I said. "All the guys who didn't ask you to prom will realise what a mistake they made."
Claire blushed. When we first met, she told me that I was only her second boyfriend. She hadn't been popular at school, being a late developer and your average awkward teen, braces on her teeth and a spotty complexion. She'd said that she dated a guy from school but not until she left and started college, and that she'd lost her virginity to his much older best friend after they split up. A silly, drunken one-night stand. The guy had offered her a shoulder to cry on, one thing led to another and she ended up regretting it.
Then she met me a couple of months later and we hit it off right away. A year later we were engaged, then two years later we were married. I often worried that we'd settled down too young. She'd only had that one boyfriend and subsequent sexual experience, and I'd only been with two girls before her, but we were happy together and that was what counted.
I was intrigued to meet a few of her old school friends, just to see if I would remember a few faces and to see if it might bring back some fond memories. So, I wasn't exactly dreading it, but I certainly wasn't as excited as Claire. She'd gone from being barely vaguely interested about going, to really looking forward to it. In fact, the couple of days prior to the event, she'd talked about nothing else.
"I'm more worried that no one will remember me," Claire said. "I look a lot different now to when I did back then. What do I do if no one says hello to me?"
"You reintroduce yourself," I reassured her. "Don't be shy. Just say hello to people that you recognise and I'm sure they'll remember you. Or they'll pretend to, at least the men will, with you looking like that." I deliberately focused my attention on her cleavage.
"Stop it," she giggled, "I'm being serious."
"So am I," I laughed back.
The venue was only a short drive away but we'd decided to arrive there fashionably late, so the event was already in full swing. The place was more lavish than I expected and was decked out in ribbons and bunting, plus dozens of old school pictures of the students and teachers stuck around on the walls. We made our way around the room after grabbing a couple of drinks from the bar, but didn't find any pictures of Claire right away.
"Claire?" said a female voice from behind us, making us turn around.
"Steph!" squealed Claire. She hugged the tall brunette. Steph then paused and looked at me. "Sorry," Claire apologised, "This is my husband, Paul."
"Hi," I shook her hand rather awkwardly because I never quite know what to say when meeting a woman. It doesn't seem right to hug someone you don't know, but handshakes always feel like something a man should do only with other men. "Nice to meet you."
"Definitely," Steph said, giving Claire a look. "Wow," she said to my wife. "You've got yourself a hunk."
"Thanks," Claire smiled. "Don't you remember him? He was a couple of years above us in school."
"I can't say I do, but it's a good job you spotted him before I did," Steph laughed. The two were obviously old friends. "It's been such a long time. I wish we'd kept in touch."
Claire nodded. "Me too. I didn't really keep in touch with anyone from school."
"Not even..." Steph started, then hesitated, flicking a quick look in my direction. "You know who? You dated a bit after school, didn't you?"
"Ah, you mean Aaron." Claire glanced at me.
"I'm sorry," Steph began but I waved the apology away.
"It's fine," I reassured her. "We've been married too long for me to worry about things like old boyfriends." It was true. Claire and I were rock solid.
"He's the guy I was seeing before you. Don't worry, darling. He's not here." Then she looked at Steph. "Is he?"
Steph laughed. She had beautiful bright blue eyes. "No, he lives down south now, I think. None of... that lot... are here, as far as I know."
"That lot?" I had to ask.
"Aaron was one of the 'bad boys,' which is kind of why I liked him," Claire explained. "He hung around in the wrong company. His crowd gave me a bit of a hard time at school. Anyway, let's not talk about all that stuff. Let's enjoy ourselves."
With that, she waved her empty wine glass at me, and I went to the bar to get her a refill, leaving her to chat to Steph some more. On my way over, I walked past another board full of photos and almost walked right past but something must have caught my eye because I stopped and had another look at the picture top right. It took me a second to be sure, but yes, that was Claire. Her blonde hair was straight and long, her face was fuller and she didn't have any makeup on, but it was definitely her. She was standing with a girl to her left, a tall lanky redhead, then three lads of various heights on her right. Behind her, with a hand on her shoulder was a much older moustached man, presumably a teacher.
I picked up a fresh beer for myself along with a glass of white wine for Claire and when I walked back to them, the old friend that had asked Claire out for coffee, Mark, had joined her and Steph.
"Paul, this is Mark," Claire said, taking the wine from me and quickly sipping some.
"Hey," he said, taking my hand and shaking it firmly. "Listen, I'm sorry about the misunderstanding before." He was taller than I'd thought, but still chubby.
"It's fine," I shook his hand back, but squeezed a bit harder than I normally would have.
"Claire looks great," he said, after extricating his hand from my grip. "You're a lucky dude."
"Thanks," I said. "We've been married ten years now. You married?"
"Congrats," he said with a genuine smile. "Nah. Divorced. But amicably, you know?"
I didn't know, but I smiled politely and then Claire dragged me away to introduce me to another of her old school girlfriends, a freckled redhead called Nicola. Then pulled me in another direction to a short chatterbox called Christina.
An hour or so and several drinks later, Claire was having a great time, but it was all a bit much for me, so I told her to go mingle and decided to chill out for a while by the end of the bar with another beer. Steph saw me on my own and came over to join me for a drink.
"Claire seems really happy," she said. "I'm glad. She deserved to find a good guy."
"That's a nice thing to say," I replied and raised a glass. "To the class of 2001." Steph joined in the cheers and then we sat and talked for a little while, until a group of people walked in the room. Three couples. I recognised at least one of the guys from the photo that I'd seen and forgotten to tell Claire about.
"Shit," I heard Steph mutter under her breath.
"What's up?"
"Those guys. They weren't supposed to be coming tonight. It's the guys who caused a bit of bother for Claire." She stood up and apologised. "Sorry. I better go tell her they're here."
"Shouldn't I go?"
"No, it's fine. I'll handle it." Steph said. "You finish your beer. I'll find her and bring her over once I've warned her."
