The Seduction

Renee finished the final review of the report and closed it with a smile. The project was finished, and the client would be pleased with their results. The production of a proprietary synthetic polymer could be improved 6 percent with some minor modifications to the formulation and production process, a solid success for the client, her firm, and her team.

Renee led a team of two junior chemists and three laboratory technicians for a large industrial research laboratory. She was forty-one and a nationally recognized expert in her field. She opened a folder on a new research project that her team had been asked to tackle.

There was a quiet tap on her office door, and her lab chief came in. He was accompanied by a young man who appeared to be in his late twenties.

The lab chief said, "Renee, I would like to introduce you to Dimitri Rostov. He will be helping Dr. Hargood for the next month with some mathematical modeling and will be using the office across the hall from you. Dimitri, this is Dr. Renee Johnson, one of our top researchers and problem solvers."

Renee stood and walked around her desk to shake hands with Dimitri as they exchanged cordial pleasantries.

Renee asked, "Rostov? Are you by chance related to Professor Rostov at Ohio State?"

"Yes," Dimitri replied. "He is my father."

"Ah yes, a brilliant mathematician. He and I collaborated on a National Research Council project a few years ago. Your father is a charming man. I believe your mother is also there at Ohio State?"

Dimitri nodded and said, "Yes, she is a professor in international economics. They both fled from Kiev when the iron curtain fell and were fortunate to be offered positions at Ohio State."

"Well, if you are helping Jack Hargood with mathematical modeling, you must have inherited your father's perchance for math. Jack is a true genius; you will enjoy working with him.

The lab chief interjected, "Unfortunately, Dr. Johnson will be leaving us at the end of the summer. We can't change your mind, can we, Renee?"

Renee smiled and said, "No, I am afraid not. I want to try something different. "

Seeing the question in Dimitri's eyes, Renee explained, "The university has offered me an associate professorship to come on with them full time. I have been an adjunct professor for some years, and I do enjoy teaching. The campus is only next door, so my new office will be just up the hill. I am not going far."

The lab chief smiled and said, "Well, Renee you can count on us for research and consulting support; we can't afford to lose your talents entirely."

The lab chief and Dimitri took their leave and exited. Renee noticed Dimitri limped slightly on the right side. He was a well-built, muscular man with short cropped, blond hair so it was probably an old athletic injury. Renee settled back at her desk and began to lay out an experimental plan for the new project.

At 5:00 Renee sat back and rubbed her eyes. That was enough for today. She cut off her computer and closed up her folders. It was only a four block walk to home, but there was no rush today. Her sixteen-year old daughter had Renee's car and had driven her and her fourteen-year old brother to school. The daughter had play practice after school, and the son had baseball practice. It would probably be after seven before they got through gabbing with friends afterwards and arrived home. That would be about the same time her husband would get home also. He worked for a financial firm in downtown Atlanta. The money was mighty good, but the hours were long and the commute in city traffic was terrible.

It was a pleasant spring day, so Renee decided she would walk over to the University Club and have a glass of wine and see who among her University cohorts she might encounter. One of the privileges of being an adjunct professor was membership in the exclusive University Club with the other faculty.

As Renee closed and locked her office door, she saw Dimitri immersed in something on the computer screen in his office across the hall.

Renee called out, "Dimitri, you are still hard at it. How was your first day with us?"

Dimitri looked up and gave a large friendly smile that flashed even white teeth framed by full lips. His blue eyes sparkled with good humor. What an attractive young man, Rene thought to herself.

"It has been very good. You were right. Working with Jack Hargood is going to be great. He really is a genius."

Rene smiled, "I told you so. I am calling it quits and headed to the University Club for a drink. Wanna come along?"

Dimitri quickly took Renee up on the offer, and they strolled the quarter mile through the campus to the University Club as they exchanged pleasantries. The Club was located in a historic building dating back to the 1880s. They got their glasses of wine at the bar and sat at a table on the veranda looking out over the campus. In front of them, the campus' grassy quad was fringed with blooming redbud and dogwood trees, and students thronged the area, some lounging in the pleasant afternoon sun and others scurrying hither and yon. It was a pleasant and peaceful tableau.

Renee took a sip of her wine and asked, "Dimitri, you are only going to be with us a month. What are your plans beyond that."

"Oh, I am just killing time with a little consulting now. I had a medical discharge from the Army last month. In July I go to MIT to start my PhD with Dr. Stanley; he is one of Dad's old friends. Dr. Stanley is on sabbatical until then."

"Ah, the Army. Is that where you got your limp?"

Dmitri smiled ruefully, "Yeah, I was an infantry platoon leader in Afghanistan on patrol. Had a meeting engagement with the enemy in a confused firefight that neither side anticipated. We prevailed." He paused thoughtfully, then continued, "Better training and weapons, but it was a wild time. A ricochet hit my knee. In that kind of fight, it's all about the luck of the draw."

Renee listened intently to this surprising information. She asked curiously, "Isn't it unusual for someone like you ... You know, I mean from the intelligentsia and upper class." Renee blushed this was coming out all wrong. "After all, your parents are full professors and are well off and widely respected. Young men like you don't ..." Renee waved her hands in frustration.

Dimitri laughed easily, "I understand what you are trying to politely ask; what's a smart, rich, white boy like me doing as a grunt soldier. Well, mom and dad lived under communism and escaped to this country. They are very proud to be Americans now and brought me up to believe I had an obligation to serve, specifically because I was so fortunate. I enjoyed the Army and my comrades. I would do it all again."

Renee nodded her head thoughtfully, "Well, that is certainly a refreshing attitude these days. Thank you for your service."

Renee thought to herself that she would certainly never hear sentiments like that out of her husband. He was consumed with making money, of which he made quite a bit. Wealth was his sacred lodestone. He probably considered her and the children simply as acolytes servicing his altar to Ploutos, the god of money. Her husband remained completely befuddled by her willingness to take a pay cut in order to teach.

Dimitri sipped his wine and made a slight gesture toward Renee's left hand with her wedding ring asking pleasantly, "And your husband? What does he do? Research like you?"

Renee laughed and replied, "Oh no, Bill is not a technical person at all. He is a vice president with one of the big financial firms downtown. They are into all kinds of stocks, bonds, loans, currency manipulations, and all that kind of thing. Quite boring from my point of view, but Bill thinks the same of my work,"

Dimitri flashed a warm smile and said, "No doubt Bill's work is quite lucrative though. More so than research anyway. What about children?"

Renee returned Dimitri's warm smile, "Oh yes, a son and a daughter. Our fourteen-year old son is undecided whether he will make his living playing baseball with the Atlanta Braves or football with the Dallas Cowboys. In a few years, he will realize, he will have to make a real living somehow, but for now, he can dream."

Dimitri laughed sympathetically, "I well remember those days. I was sure I was going to be an ace pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds when I was about his age. How about your daughter; does she dream of being an athlete too?"

Renee gave a wry laugh as she replied with a sharp tone, "Oh no, not that one. My daughter is a different cup of tea altogether. She is sixteen going on twenty-one."

Renee snorted in derision, "She thinks so, anyway. Her mother does not. My daughter has aspirations of Hollywood, being a star, and living the wild, glamorous life." Renee waved her hands dismissively saying, "Her chance of success is about the same as her brother's."

Dimitri gave a charming smile and said levelly looking into Renee's eyes, "She sounds like a handful. However, if she is half as beautiful as her mother, she may surprise you!"

Renee smiled and inclined her head in acknowledgment of the compliment, thinking what dreamy, beautiful blue eyes this boy has. She patted Dimitri's arm replying sweetly, "Thank you, Dear, but don't you think I am a little long in the tooth for such gallantry from a young gentleman."

In actual fact, Renee knew the compliment was well deserved. Seven years ago, she realized motherhood and sedentary research work had combined to rob her of a once very fine figure. She went to work on the problem, watching what she ate and engaging in a vigorous exercise program: three intense sessions a week with a trainer intermixed with running, swimming, and tennis. Today she maintained the program and was only five pounds heavier than when she was twenty. If anything, her figure was fuller and more voluptuous than ever before.

Dimitri laughed pleasantly, "Not at all. I think you are being coy. You are a a brilliant researcher, and you know very well you are a beautiful woman. Perhaps you are just fishing for compliments which I shall be happy to lavish upon you."

And so it went, as they got to know each other accompanied by innocent teasing and flirting. One wine became two and then three. The couples' lighthearted tone became more intimate and personal as time passed, and the wine lowered their inhibitions - as wine is wont to do.

Dimitri revealed he had been engaged to a longtime girlfriend, a high school sweetheart actually. They were to be married on his return from Afghanistan, but the fiancee broke it off after he was overseas for a month. She emailed that it was too much pressure on her, and it was too long to wait. She began dating other men and was married before his return.

Dimitri finished his tale of amorous woe with a shrug of the shoulders and a nonchalant, "And such are the fortunes of love and war."

Renee, for her part, started slowly. But then once she began, it was like a small rivulet of a leaking dam that gradually grows to become a rushing torrent. She was not unhappy in her marriage, but not really happy either. She carried the domestic load of home and children as well as a full professional career. Her husband provided money in copious quantity but little else. His work and commute meant he was seldom home, and he traveled often. He did not take care of himself and was becoming increasingly obese, which raised health worries. She tiptoed around the topic delicately, but eventually it slipped out that the married couple's pallid sex life was not to her satisfaction either. In the end, the picture that emerged was of a beautiful, intelligent, older, married woman who was comfortable but emotionally and physically not fully satisfied with her lot in life.

As Renee finished her wine and seriously debated a fourth glass with her charming companion, she realized the time. She exclaimed, laughing, "My God, Dimitri! Look at the time. It is almost seven already; I must get home. I have a family to tend to."

Renee stood up, bent over, and gave Dimitri a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. What a lovely afternoon."

Renee paused, looked steadily into Dimitri's eyes, and murmured throatily, "Goodness, we'll have to do this again. ... Soon."

Without waiting for a response, she turned with a flounce and walked briskly toward home.

As Renee made the fifteen minute walk home, she smiled thoughtfully thinking, "My, oh my, that was certainly refreshing."

As she walked, she popped a Certs into her mouth to mask the wine on her breath. Pulling out her cell phone, she called the local pizza joint; they were on her speed dial and a common call. She ordered two large pizzas to be delivered. Of course her children could not eat the same toppings on their pizza. Her husband would devour whatever the rest of them didn't eat so nothing would go to waste.

The pizza would arrive in thirty minutes so she would have time to throw together a salad in the vain hope of getting some vegetables into her charges. They would chow down on the pizza and only grudgingly nibble at the salad under her dutiful prodding.

As she approached home, she saw the children were back; her husband was not yet. "Well," she thought with a sly smile, "I'll just claim to have been working late, and nobody will be any the wiser about dear ol' Mom spending a risque afternoon drinking wine with a very attractive and interesting man who is more than a decade younger than she is."

The next day at lunch, Renee got a salad and an ice tea at the lab's cafeteria. She spied Dimitri siting at a table outside with a couple of their colleagues so she wandered over and joined them. The group enjoyed a congenial 30-minute lunch and gossip session about the doings around the lab. The colleagues departed leaving Dimitri and Renee alone in the pleasant spring midday sunshine.

Dimitri smiled and said, "Thank you for my welcome yesterday. It was very pleasant."

Renee returned the smile and replied, "Yes it certainly was. I very much enjoyed our time together."

Dimitri gazed steadily into Renee's eyes and with a bold smile said, "The lab is putting me up at the Residence Inn just a couple blocks from here. Turns out, I happen to have a bottle of nice Spanish Albarino wine and a block of Manchego cheese back in my room. Perhaps you would like to join me this afternoon to sample those so we can continue getting acquainted?"

Renee returned Dimitri's gaze steadily as a smile teased at her lips. She giggled inwardly and thought, "Oh what a cheeky young boy. But girl, you certainly don't have anything better to do this afternoon than let this nice male specimen have his way with you."

Renee's smile broke through after a few beats, and she exclaimed with a girlish laugh. "Dimitri! What a naughty idea; I would love to."

Dimitri grinned and said in a low, excited voice, "I hoped you would. I came in early today so I can get off early. How about three o'clock?"

"My goodness, you are a pushy young man, but I am sure we could put the extra time to good use before I have to get back to husband and family. I'll tell the secretary that I am taking off early this afternoon to go to the university library to do research."

At three o'clock Renee knocked on Dimitri's door. Dimitri opened it, welcomed her with a warm kiss, and led her to the little dinnette table where two glasses of wine waited with the cheese on a cutting board. A baguette and a bowl of olives rounded out the repast. He handed her a glass of wine.

Renee took a sip of her wine savoring the sharp, crispness of the chilled Spanish wine. She put her glass down and purred with a seductive smile, "Dimitri, this looks lovely, but that is not why I came to see you today."

Renee shrugged out of her suit jacket and hung it on the back of a dinnette chair. She flipped her long dark hair and gazed at Dimitri. Her eyes gleamed with excitement and heat. She unbuttoned her blouse slowly as Dimitri watched spellbound still holding his untouched wine. The blouse went on top of the suit jacket, followed quickly by her bra.

As Renee began to unzip her skirt, she laughed, and exclaimed sharply, "Dimitri! Am I the only one getting naked here!"

That broke Dimitri's reverie, and he quickly joined Renee in shedding his clothes into an untidy heap on the floor. Renee grasped his hand and laughing gayly pulled him onto the king-sized bed. There they joined together in a deep probing kiss while their hands explored the body of their new bedroom playmate.

After several minutes, Renee slipped down and began to kiss and lick her well endowed young man, working him to the edge of climax. With devilish timing, she laughed throatily and murmured "Not yet, my Dear," and pulled his head down to her breasts to allow him to suckle her and begin an intimate exploration of her own body.

The humidity in the room rose rapidly, and they were both soon panting. Renee spread her legs and welcomed Dimitri into her. Locking her legs tightly around Dimitri, she absorbed his powerful thrusts with happy grunts of pleasure. Finally, when both were happily spent, they lay intertwined together on the bed.

After a brief respite, Dimitri got their wine from the table and rejoined Renee in the bed. Murmuring sweet nothings and compliments as lovers do, they sipped their no longer chilled wines. Placing the wine glasses on the bedside when finished, they enjoyed another bout of frenzied lovemaking, after which they dozed nestled tightly together.

They awoke ravenous. Dimitri poured fresh glasses of wine, and they finally enjoyed the repast on the dinnette table that Dimitri had prepared. They chatted happily as they ate and drank.

Now sated and rested again, Renee stood and took Dimitri by the hand, leading him back to bed. She thought to herself gleefully, "The advantage of taking a young lover is a girl can get plenty of service out of her stud stallion."

When they were once again fulfilled, Renee took a speedy shower and dressed quickly. She leaned over and gave Dimitri a long, lingering kiss, finally breaking it to whisper, "I think we should have lunch here together tomorrow."

Dimitri grinned, replying quickly, "I think that is a wonderful idea."

Renee laughed, glanced at her watch and said, "Oh my, late again. Must get back to my hubby and the children."

As she strode toward the door she glanced back with a smile, "Until tomorrow, my Dear. Rest up. I want another stellar performance out of you."

She left quickly and headed home at a brisk pace. She would arrive home about the same time as her husband and children again. It would be another extemporaneous meal. She had some nice rib eyes in the freezer that she could defrost and charm her husband into grilling. She certainly had something to celebrate tonight! She would pick a nice wine to go with the steaks. The microwave would provide fast baked potatoes. Make a salad and steam some frozen green beans, and voila, the meal would be complete.

Renee giggled whispering, "Just little miss homemaker, that's me. And my family suspects not a whit about Mom's very naughty, adulterous afternoon tryst."

Renee felt light and carefree. She would have liked to skip down the sidewalk like a happy little girl but was too embarrassed to try it. Renee had a whole month to enjoy her delightful young stud stallion. What a month it was going to be!

She grinned as she thought, "My goodness, the young boy is so like his father, just ever so much more vigorous."

Renee reflected on Dimitri's father fondly. When they had worked together on the National Research Council project a few years back, there had been several week-long workshops in DC over the course of the project. Dimitri's father had spent every night of the workshops in Renee's bed. They still occasionally crossed paths at conventions. Renee sighed contentedly; the man was truly a delightful and skilled lover. One of the best ever.