Adultery 7

"I want you to meet my friend." The idea had been a quick drink after a long week. Friday afternoons I liked to sneak away and slip into my favorite watering hole. Anders knew where I would be and frequently met me when he could. We wouldn't stay long. Anne would get angry if I drank too much or had too much fun. Anders was late but his wife Tracy was there already sitting with a tall blonde woman. The woman was not unnaturally large but she seemed to be. Next to Tracy's tiny frame she looked like an Amazon warrior. I didn't want to meet Tracy's friend and as much as I enjoyed Anders' company on Friday afternoons his wife was insane. I attempted a courteous how do you do and a quick escape to the end of the bar where I would have a tall cold light beer and possibly some chicken wings.

"Oh my god! Scott!" said the woman. I had to study her carefully. "You haven't changed a bit!" I scanned my brain and the old records that were stored in dusty old boxes beneath the list of presidents, state capitols, and German vocabulary where I kept things I knew but had little use for. "It's Stephanie! Oh my god, it's been twenty years."

It had been more than twenty. It had been almost thirty. "Stephanie! Wow. It's great to see you!" I pretended excitement to meet her. It was awkward. I was tired.

And so my casual drink turned into a recounting of major life events since High School. We compared records - college, marriage, children, and current profession. Our lives had been more or less mirror images of each other.

I had never dated Stephanie. To be honest, she was too attractive, too popular, too blonde and pretty to ever take a moment to notice me. We were little more than passing acquaintances. She was tall then too, but thin. She had filled out. I will admit it, she had filled out nicely. I don't mind that extra ten pounds or whatever women over forty put on but consider extraneous, a burden to be dieted off. Honestly she looked good.

"This guy! He was a crack-up. I had such a crush on him. We had chemistry together junior year and every day we went just to watch him spar with Mr. Richert. You tortured that poor man."

"Did I? I wasn't trying to."

I hadn't enjoyed high school. I wasn't excited to relive those days. I am not a fan of those movies, romantic depictions of the trial and tribulations of kids trying to decide if they will go out for football senior year or get a job. High school for me was just a holding pattern where I circled aimlessly until I was cleared to land at college.

"I should go. Anne will be looking for me." I said. The truth was I probably still had another hour before I was convicted and sentenced to a weekend of dirty looks and cold shoulders but I had to leave. I had to leave not because Tracey was being annoying, she actually was being quiet. I didn't have to leave because it was unpleasant recalling my high school days although that might have played some part. I had to leave because the longer I talked to the tall blonde, the more I looked at her the more I found myself attracted to her. It was a strange feeling. Four years past my fortieth birthday I had more or less stopped feeling these sorts of feelings. Shit, Anne and I hadn't been intimate in weeks and although that sounds depressing I had gotten used to it. It was like when my eyes started to go and had to get glasses. There was an adjustment period but I was used to them now. I was used to jacking off a couple times a week when it was quiet and I found myself alone at the house.

I left twenty bucks on the table. I think my beer had been $ 3.50 on happy hour but I really didn't care. Tracy of course had to hug me. Before I could get away Stephanie was standing as well and I was pulled into a second awkward hug, you know the hugs where you are trying to be polite but make as little physical contact as possible. Damn she was tall. Her height and her broad shoulders had deceived me. Now that she was standing I realized how her broad shoulders, full chest, and curvaceous hips had created an illusion that she was heavy. She was actually proportionate in that lurid way women had been in the fifties and sixties and I imagined her bent over awkwardly as Dean Martin gave one of his trademark looks.

I ran.

I was half way across the parking lot when I heard my name and turned to see her. When I said I ran I was being metaphorical. The tall woman's run was literal and in high heels she made a clopping sound across the asphalt. Her breasts bounced heartily. She called my name several more times. She panted slightly when we were again standing near each other at the trunk of my car. She said my name twice more for some reason.

"You didn't ask for my number or anything," she said.

"Oh. Yeah, sure. We should exchange numbers." She pulled a business card out of her small purse and handed it to me. As a realtor she had one of those cards with her photo on it. Despite whatever touchups they had made she was more attractive in person. "Oh, cool. I can text you. I have a Texas area code." I told her so she would recognize it. I was torn and it was even money as to whether I would text her or not.

"Do you really need to go?"

"I should. My wife will be angry."

She looked at me strangely and I was suspicious. "I don't want you to get in trouble. Trace' says she's pretty awful. God. I'm sorry. I shouldn't say stuff like that."

It was another terrible awkward moment and neither of us could quite figure out how to get out of it with our dignity.

"You know... we kissed once. At a party... At Ryan's house..." I had been suppressing the memory but it had always been there, knocking at the back window of my consciousness.

"I know." She looked at me with only the slightest of smiles. I liked her hair - long thick blonde curls. "Tracey told me the other day about her friend Scott. She had mentioned you many times but she had always called you 'Mike's Dad.' You know I have met Mike at a couple school events and it was only the other day when she said your name was Scott that I realized he looks exactly like you did twenty years ago." She looked sad. "We've lived a mile apart for five years."

"I will call you." I said.

"You were supposed to call me after that party at Ryan's house too." She stepped backwards awkwardly to allow a car to pull into the parking spot next to me. I let it go too long before I said anything and she turned and walked inside. I watched her. I watched her ass. I watched her and let my mind think the things it didn't like to think anymore. As I drove home I felt dirty. I think Anne had beaten that reaction into me. Fucking was dirty. I went home.

I love my wife, as much as she will let me anyway. She loves me in her own way. That said we are little more than roommates with the mutual connection of having bred a six-foot-four weak-side linebacker and honors student together. He would be gone in 18 months and lord knows what is going to happen when he left. When I got home I opened a bottle of wine. She drank about half a glass before falling asleep. She was snoring gently on the couch before our son even went out for the night.

"Andy told me you used to go to school with Reed's mom." he mentioned as he left. Andy was his girlfriend and Tracy and Anders' daughter, it was how we were all connected.

"Yeah, I heard." The kids talking about us and our having known each other was dangerous. Tracey, I had mentioned, is insane and was prone to really stupid decisions like setting up two of her married friends on a date. I was filled with an uneasiness that I knew came from the fact I couldn't chase the woman out of my head.

My son took off. I left Anne asleep on the couch and went to my den. It took a minute but I found an old yearbook. I looked her up. In her picture she had that crimped hairstyle they all wore back then and she had her hair piled high on the top of her head. I scanned the pages in the front and back of the book. She had left a nice note, signed it with a heart, and written a phone number beneath her name. It was so different back then. We didn't call them "land lines" they were just phones and if you wanted to talk to a girl there was a pretty strong likelihood you were going to have to talk to her mother first. I thought about the business card in my car. I had decided it would be a bad idea for it to be discovered in my pocket. I checked that Anne was still sleeping and fetched it from the pocket in the car door. Inside in my den I set it on the stack of business cards that I have collected there for normal legitimate business practices and tried to forget about it.

I opened a second bottle resolving only to have one glass. It was around ten when Anne woke up and moved from the couch to the bed. The coast was clear and I slipped out the front door and fished a cigarette from beneath the eve of the house. I was such a good boy in high school. I didn't smoke or drink. I didn't do much homework either but it was okay, I seldom got less than an A on any test. It had been such a waste of four years. I set the burning cigarette on a rock and scurried to my desk and back before it had a chance to burn out. I typed the phone number into my cell phone and attached my contact information; it was a pretty slick use of modern technology. I thought twice about pressing send but in the end I did it. I stuffed my phone back into my pocket.

I hadn't even finished the cigarette when it vibrated silently on my hip.

"I know where you live now." She said.

"You are a realtor. Couldn't you look that up in about thirty seconds?"

"Yes. It took me longer to get your phone number though. Probably a whole minute."

"Ha ha." I typed back. I didn't use lol or smiley faces.

"You are thinking about me?" she sent.

I thought about a response and couldn't come up with a good one. I had to fish out another cigarette. I didn't sit staring at my phone but I didn't put it down either. I just held it waiting for it to vibrate again.

"Reed is out at some party."

"I drank too much with Tracey. She is a bad influence."

"You aren't responding. I should stop texting you. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"Good night." She finished it with a smiley face that looked like it was making kissy lips.

"No. It's okay." I sent. "Anne went to bed two hours ago."

"Devin is at the Suns game with clients. I suspect he will go out after. I doubt he will be home for hours."

It's not that I had changed my mind and wanted to see her, it was far more urgent. I have no idea why but I felt like I needed to see her.

"Meet me. Meet me at Randy's" I sent suggesting the little neighborhood bar closest to my house. I couldn't imagine being daring enough to get dressed and go out late at night after Anne had gone to bed but desperate times call for desperate measures and though I was a little old to feel desperately about anything other than my nightly cocktail I felt it now, I felt desperation and it felt good.

"No." she sent. I read it and was confused. Was she teasing? Had I gone too far? How did I respond to that?

"Its late. I already drank too much. I left my car at the bar earlier. Anders brought me home. I know too many people that might be there. I can't stand the idea of getting all dressed again."

The next message was an address. When addresses come in they come in as a link to the map but you know that. I pressed it and my phone showed where she lived and the shortest route there. Standing in front of my house, my third cigarette of the day creating a thin blue line in the glow of the porch light I realized I could make out the red tile roof of her house from my driveway. It was a weird happenstance that we had lived so close for so long and only today met.

I didn't even need to get shoes. I walked in my Jeans, T-shirt, and bare feet the three blocks to her house.

My phone buzzed again as I reached her house. She had a tall saguaro in the front yard and I can remember having seen it during the holidays wrapped in red and white lights like a candy cane.

"That's a bad idea, isn't it? Forget I suggested it." The message read. I responded to it by knocking at the door. It took too long for her to answer and for a moment I had a nightmare that I was at the wrong house. I knocked lightly again. If it weren't her house I would ask if their cable was out or something.

The door opened. She was in a luxurious pink robe, the kind I had bought for my wife that she never wore preferring a cheap heavy terry cloth one she got from some discount store and replaced every few years. I hated that I compared Stephanie to Anne but it is impossible not to. That was the whole point. I was deciding on risking one woman for the potential of the other. Stephanie was taller. Anne had larger breasts but in the robe the swells of the other woman's chest appeared more than sufficient. Stephanie was smiling at me. I honestly couldn't recall the last time Anne had smiled... at anything.

"Hi," she said simply. I took it to mean, "Good day sir, please, come into my house. Kiss me, Kiss me you marvelous man, grope me with your strong hands, part my legs with your manhood and ravage me. Make me a woman, you delightful rogue you!" I stepped inside.

Surprisingly there was no small talk. There was no flirtatious banter. She took a deep breath as I closed the door behind me and as she let it out the smile on her face faded and was replaced with a desperately serious look. It was a smoldering look. I loved her eyes. I stepped to her and with my hand at her jaw, my fingers on her neck I pulled her lips to mine.

I couldn't recall the last time I had kissed someone that had kissed me back. Had Anne ever kissed me so passionately? We hadn't even been married yet when one night while fucking she had pushed my face away from hers. I was still moving inside of her when she admitted she didn't like kissing me. "It's okay, you just aren't a good kisser, it's not your thing," she had said. She was a beautiful woman and had already said yes to my proposal. I decided it probably wasn't that important. Stephanie however seemed to collapse into my arms as our lips moved softly against each other.

We gasped for breath and I moved my hand down her back feeling her body beneath the soft satin. I detected something else beneath the robe. As our lips parted and our tongues touched delicately I tugged at the tie at her belly and moved my hands inside the robe and explored a similarly soft negligée. My palm moved over her breast. There was a satisfying weight to it and her nipple was firm against my hand beneath the thin material. I teased it gently with my thumb and finger and she incorporated her teeth into our kiss, pinching my lower lip between them and her tongue. My knees were weak.

Could I lift her? I wanted to lift her. It was somewhat awkward as I moved to gather her up, my arm behind her knees, her back cradled clumsily I bent my knees and she came off the ground. I was old but not over the hill.

"That way," she whispered between kisses. "To your left," she said. We giggled as we made our way through the hall. "Wrong way," she muttered as I pressed open a door.

"Sorry."

"No. It's okay. Its good. Oh god. It's fine." She said. We were in a girlish bedroom. She had mentioned a daughter in college. We were too old to be fooling around like kids. What was wrong with me? We collapsed into a double bed. It was small but intimate. My hand found the bare flesh of her thigh and I traced her leg to her hip, the satin moving higher along with my hand. I found the dent of her waist and moved my hand forward. I felt her soft belly and traced her navel with my fingertips. We didn't stop kissing. We couldn't stop kissing.

She fumbled with my jeans and had them open. She ran her hand inside my T-shirt. I had to break free of her lips. I was scared to, as if the moment the kiss broke so too would end whatever charm I had cast to seduce her. I wanted more though. I needed more. She pressed her hand into my jeans and my cock reacted to her touch jubilantly. My jeans had to go. Fuck her or not my cock needed to be free. Just to press it against the bare flesh of her leg would be enough. Jesus, she felt good. I forced myself away from her and stood up beside the bed.

I looked down on her. She had been attractive enough in the bar and when I had walked into her house she had been beautiful but now she was simply delicious and I ached to devour her. She was reclined across the small bed. The outline of her breasts called to me. The bare skin of her neck begged for my lips. Her shoulders were tan, her robe caught up behind her back. I hated to look away for even the portion of a second it took to tug my T-shirt over my head. When I moved on to removing my jeans she sat up and pulled her arms free of her robe. I wouldn't have said anything if she had removed her chemise but I preferred that she left it on. It was hiked up on one side and I hungered for her thigh. I could spy just a hint of hair below her belly button between her legs.

Later, I told myself. I would at some point soon satisfy my oral fixation by attending to her laboriously with my mouth and tongue but that was for another night. Questions raced through my mind - silly logistical questions. Birth control? A condom? It had been so long since I had even touched another woman I wondered how all those old questions were addressed these days. My jeans and boxers dropped to the carpet and she parted her thighs ever so slightly. She wasn't smiling at me. She looked up at me with the same sort of desperation I was feeling looking down at her. I pressed all thoughts from my over-active mind and went to her.

I slid into her easily and the sensation was remarkable. She pulled me to her and finally we were kissing again. Did she know that it was the kissing that was the key to her seduction of me? Was it intentional or was it just the happy coincidence of sexual chemistry that we both seemed to need the intimacy of our lips touching to create the intensity of the moment? Why was I wasting the moment contemplating these things? She began to move beneath me, she pressed her hips forward in time with my movements. Jesus, I loved this woman.

I felt her orgasm in the reflexive tension of the muscles in her abdomen and legs and in the sudden tightness of the hold she took of my cock. She didn't sigh or moan but instead expressed her level of satisfaction in the way that she gasped for breath. When the orgasm gripped her she again took my lip in her teeth and this time I could taste iron in the blood she drew. It was my turn and I took her with a renewed veracity. I was sweating with the exertion and when I joined her in climax she moaned at the feel of my seed as I filled her. I thought to pull away but she gripped my ass in her hands.

We laid together in silence afterward our fingers running over each others bodies. When again we couldn't resist the urge to kiss each other our touches became more directed, her hand on my cock, my fingers teasing the hot wetness between her legs. I recovered my erection and her smile changed again to that look of desperation. This time she moved on top of me. She pressed me into her and sat up. I watched her. She pressed her eyes closed and rocked on top of me.

We never heard the door and were therefore stunned into paralysis when the voice called out. "Mom? You still up?" It was a mans voice but it had called out for his mother. Her son was home. We held like statues our stillness enforcing silence. The door was open and the boy and a guest passed only feet away. The room and hall were dark but we could make out each other well enough, if they looked, they too would be able to see everything.

Fuck, if only she didn't look so good. If perhaps her breasts had not looked so appetizing I might have resisted. Whatever inspired my deviousness it was too much of a temptation not to give in and in each hand I took one of her erect nipples. Her eyes widened in shock. I smiled at her and tightened my grip. She bit her bottom lip. Tighter still I pinched them and she pressed her eyes closed.