Colette
He'll be here soon. Brice Freeland, I mean, my twenty-year-old former neighbor who also has become my lover. Nothing unusual about that. Except that I'm nearing the half-century mark and I'm married. Nothing unusual about that either, I suppose. People cheat all the time. Other wives and husbands do, but not me. At least that's the way I felt during my twenty-seven-year marriage to James, my husband, who's now over in Paris attending to the restaurant we opened together after he sold his dental practice and amassed enough windfall in the process that he could afford to retire and do something else with his life. Our life, too, because it sounded like something out of a romantic dream. Fun, too.
And it was for a while. We bought a restaurant/bakery in Paris for a few hundred-thousand. Chump change to us compared to the few million we got for the dental practice. We were newbies. Knew just a few French phrases. No matter, we thrived. At least James did. Me, I missed my life back home. My friends, Broadview, our country club, and just communicating without having to lug around a French-English dictionary. Missed our kids also. Edward and Muriel. They did come to visit once. But I wanted to see more of them.
And so, after a year and a half, I tried to persuade James to sell the restaurant, pack up and return home to Maryland. "I'm not even close to doing that, Colette," he said. "I'm having too much fun."
We argued back and forth. Good naturedly at first. But then the arguments got more heated. Our sex life, which had been on the wane anyway, became non-existent. It's amazing how a man you've been married to for close to three decades can almost feel like a stranger. We became strangers to each other. Finally, I said enough is enough. And he said, "au revoir."
I returned to Maryland to the two-bedroom condo we had bought after becoming empty nesters. The condo is paid for, so my part-time secretarial work and savings keeps me solvent. We had asked Brice to watch it for us while we were away. Basically, all it entailed was adjusting the thermostat, watering the plants and maybe vacuuming when needed. That was about it.
We'd known Brice since he was in grade school. In fact, for a few months, I was den mother for his Cub Scout troop. We were neighbors in Ryland Heights, our former neighborhood, a post-World War Two, upper-middle class suburban community where he and his parents still live. James and I had been casual friends with Jenna and Mike, Brice's parents. While away, we had kept in touch, mostly through email. Ryland Heights is only a few miles from our condo, so Brice didn't mind being on "condo duty" while we were away. My grown children live out of state.
I met Brice at the condo a few days after arriving back in the states. We went over some things, and then I thanked him with a generous check. And that should have been that. But it wasn't, because there was a strange chemistry brewing between us. We began talking, talk that soon got personal, talk that led to an intimacy that I never saw coming when Brice agreed to watch the condo. My life took a turn. Oh, boy, did it ever!
Brice
Ever drive with a boner so hard it feels like it's going to burst through your pants? No? Well, try it some time. But you'll need to find the right lady that turns you on so much that the very thought of her makes your dick hard as a rock. That lady would be Colette Henson and right now, I'm on my way to see her.
She was once my neighbor and Cub Scout den mother. I was nine years old then and to me, she was just this nice lady who took us on field trips and supervised various scout projects. Then, with the onset of puberty, I began to see her in a different light, the female species generally in a different light. Raging hormones can take you places that you never imagined in your kid life. In more ways than one, I outgrew my Cub Scout uniform, and Colette became this older woman fantasy, prime jerk-off material for me, a tall, gangly boy struggling to make sense of the changes taking place in his early adolescent body. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that my Colette Henson fantasies would one day become reality.
Colette's never revealed her exact age to me, but I know she's got to be at least forty-five. And she's still so pretty, with soft features and soft skin that belies her age. She's at the age where a woman's sex drive peaks. At least that's what I've heard, and Colette appears to be a prime example. She's beautiful and sexy and sensuous. And it's not just the way she looks but what she says and how she says it. 'My head is spinning with desire for you to drive that magnificent appendage of yours into my eager pussy.' Not made up. She really said that and then spread her smooth, gorgeous legs, guided me in and then closed her beautiful emerald eyes for most of the ride.
But I digress.
It began as a favor. I'd watch the Henson's condo while they were away in Paris. No big deal. Glad to do it, I said. They'd be paying me, so what the hell? College kept me busy but not so busy that I couldn't make time to do the chores that Colette and James wanted done. Her return to the states without James surprised me. I thought they had a solid marriage. Not so solid, she confided to me. Moving to Paris and opening a restaurant, James' idea, sounded so romantic to Colette. She thought it might revive the romance that had long ago gone out of her marriage. But, with all the work required to keep the business going, plus ongoing issues that no expat move alone could resolve, that didn't happen. She got bored, she got stressed and that was that. She came home. Alone.
She told me all this when we met a few days after she arrived back. Why did she confide in me rather than lean on one of her friends? She said she felt more comfortable telling me because she didn't think I'd judge her like some of her smug, gossipy friends might, including my parents with whom she still kept in touch.
She paid me well for the work I did. The money, I mean, not the sex. Becoming intimate with me wasn't part of the deal. It just happened. Well, not "just." Not long after she got home, she'd call me. She talked more about her marriage but also began asking about me. How was college going? Had I picked a major? Did I have a girlfriend? College was going great, my major was political science and yes, I had a girlfriend, Kelly-Ann Cornelio.
But that didn't stop either of us from becoming closer, first in a conversational sense, and then later in the sort of closeness that I sure as hell never expected. That First Time happened one Friday night when she invited me over for dinner. After telling my parents that I was "meeting friends," I drove over to the condo. She greeted me barefoot, wearing a white kimono and this amazing scent, pungent, penetrating and so seductive. Naïve I'm not, so I had a good idea of where this was going and where in fact it went after we finished this delicious casserole meal she fixed, washed down with some fancy red wine that must have cost a bundle.
One thing led to another. Cliché, I know, but isn't there a sequence to everything? The intimate chatter on the living room sofa which led to hand holding which led to soft kisses which led to passionate kisses which led to touching which led to her bedroom which led to...Well, use your imagination, sports fans.
If reality actually does fail to meet the thrill of fantasy, or so I've heard, my experience with Colette Henson is an exception to the rule. I'd never tell my girlfriend or parents but I'd sure like to express my joy to my guy friends. When you experience something that great, you want to tell people, even though the experience might make me look bad. We're adulterers, after all. Not something I'm proud of, not something she's proud of. But here we are, doing it and locked in a pact not to tell a soul.
After that first time, she said, "Guys like to brag about their so-called conquests. I know that as well as you, Brice."
"Guys do," I admitted, "but not this guy. You can trust me. Scout's honor."
So far, she has and so far, I haven't betrayed that trust. Anyway, I just pulled into the parking lot of her condo, running on high octane, breathing hard with anticipation.
Colette
I've got to be careful. My condo is the garden style variety, where people can see people coming and going. What would they think upon seeing a young, good-looking guy like Brice enter and leave my place? At the very least, they'd be curious. Perhaps they'd keep it to themselves. Or, maybe not. I can hear the gossip now, because some of them know that James is still in France. "He's having too much fun to return just yet," I've told the couple neighbors who've asked, leaving out our marital problems. But the suspicious way they look at me suggests that they suspect it's more than just "fun" that keeps him there and me here.
Yes, it's devilishly risky what I'm doing, not to mention naughty, not to mention repulsive to others who consider themselves made of higher moral fiber. That's okay, they can think what they wish. I'll continue to have my own fun with Brice. Looking out my window, I see him coming up the walk now, with his maroon varsity jacket thrown over his blue Under Amor V-neck, his long legs wrapped in tight jeans, looking like the basketball-playing jock that he is, all six-foot-five of him.
He steps inside and then stoops down to kiss me. "So how's my beautiful, sexy den mother?"
I reach up and ruffle his wavy brown hair, then wrap my arms around him. "She's doing great now that my sexy, handsome Cub Scout is here. I missed you."
"Missed you too," he says, sliding his big hands down the back of my shorts. "You smell so good," he adds.
When we pull back, I offer him a beer. "We've got Blue Moon. Your fave, you've told me."
"That would be great," he says. He removes his jacket, kicks off his sneakers, and then folds his long frame onto the sofa, recently upholstered in an earth tone fabric.
After taking two bottles of brew from the fridge, I join him, sitting sideways with my legs folded under me. Per my asking, he tells me the classes he's taking, his basketball practices and a little about Kelly-Ann Cornelio, his girlfriend. She's an education major at Towson U., he tells me. He shows me a pic of the blond, comely young lady on his phone. "Hope you're not jealous," he jokes.
"Oh, I'll get over it," I respond.
We both laugh. No, I'm hardly jealous because I would expect a kid like Brice to be involved with a pretty girl. Anyway, what right have I to be jealous doing what I'm doing? "But I guess that Kelly-Ann wouldn't be happy if somehow she found out about us," I say.
His wry, toothy grin says it all. "Ah, no, she wouldn't," he says. "There could be like, hell to pay."
