Chapter 2 concluded with Gwen departing the conference for home.
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When I left Gwen's room I returned to mine and realized that I had never before felt a void inside me. What had happened? There was simply no logical explanation for the undeniable fact that I had met Gwen forty-eight hours before, had shared unspeakable intimacies with her, had laughed more in forty-eight hours than I had in the previous forty-eight days, and felt absolutely alive in every fiber of my body. It was simply amazing and I could not wrap my head around the events or my behavior.
One phrase kept running through my brain and that was, "There's no fool like an old fool." I tried to fit that to my circumstances with Gwen, but it didn't seem to fit. That tiny, squirming, hilarious, emotional woman had been as open and unadorned with me as I was with her.
I had to conclude that I was in some uncharted regions of my life and there was only one thing to do and that was to move forward and see where it led. With that in mind I prepared for the Noon meeting and dressed and took the elevator downstairs to get some coffee and to read the newspaper.
I had my coffee and newspaper when my good colleague, Howard, appeared and asked if he could join me. I nodded to a chair at my table and he sat and ordered coffee. Howard said, "It's good to see you up and about."
"Why's that, Howard?"
"No one has seen you for two days, Will, aside from that spectacular sideshow you and the lady provided at the banquet last night."
I smiled, "That was a rather ostentatious display last evening, wasn't it? She did make an entrance, didn't she?"
Howard laughed and said, "And, if that wasn't enough, the talk of the conference, today, is the kiss she laid on you at the dance last night."
"That confused me, too. She had an explanation for it that didn't quite compute for me."
Howard added, "We have a couple of anthropologists at the conference and their explanation of the kiss is that she was marking her territory and warning every other female that you were not available."
"Really! That's interesting, Howard. That was her explanation with a rather graphical example affixed."
It was Howard's turn to say, "Really!" He continued, "I've always thought anthropologists just made up stories to fit their observations. Maybe they do know what they're talking about."
"Well, that's certainly Madeline's thesis as you well know."
Howard wrinkled his face at the thought of Madeline's thesis.
We were finishing our coffee and Howard said, "Come along with me, today, Will. I'm headed to the stockyards here on a bit of a field trip until it's time to get to the airport."
"I can't imagine I have time for it, Howard. I have an executive committee meeting from Noon until two and then I have to get to the airport for a four o'clock flight home."
Howard said, "Oh, I'm on the same flight. I'll see you there. Hey, where have you been since the semester began. I haven't see you around the department at all."
"Sabbatical this semester, Howard."
Howard looked pensive and then chuckled, "Life isn't fair, Will. You get the beautiful lady and a sabbatical."
"By the way, Howard. The beautiful lady, as you put it, yells at me quite a lot. Is that normal?"
Howard's response was, "I certainly have a limited data set, but yelling seems about right. My wife spends half her life yelling at me about God knows what. My experience is that you haven't stepped in shit until they get really, really quiet."
"Good, my shoes are clean. Thanks, Howard."
The executive committee meeting and the flight home went well and I was in my house by eight o clock that evening. Once I had played with the cats and unpacked I made a cup of coffee and called Gwen.
She answered on the third ring and asked, "Is this that Old Man I was talking to at a conference recently?"
"No," I responded. "This is a different old man. You put the first one into cardiac arrest and I'm his designated replacement."
Her response was, "Oh dear. I don't want to talk to you. I want the original one."
"All right. I'll see if he can come to the phone," and I waited a bit and then said, "Hey, Beautiful."
Gwen responded, "Oh, Old Man, I miss you so much already. And, Anastasia wants to know if Ivan is OK."
"Tell Anastasia that Ivan is in rehab and will again be in working order in a week."
Gwen laughed and then said, "I think I cried all the way home, I missed you so much."
My response was, "That's very interesting because after I went back to my room this morning I felt like I had a big hole inside me somewhere."
"As soon as you get here, there won't be a hole any longer. Just hurry."
I realized, suddenly, that I was awfully glad to be talking to Gwen and I remarked to her that that was the case.
"Are you kidding? I've been holding my breath since I got home waiting for your call."
"Well, take a deep breath and enjoy it and don't do that again. Nothing short of a disaster would stop me from calling you."
We talked a few minutes later and Gwen made me promise that I'd remember to call the next night and to hurry and get to her.
I responded with "I promise to close down here and get there as fast as possible, and not later than a week from now. Oh, and send me the name and phone number and address of an M.D. and dentist to whom I can have my records sent for a semester. Also a vet for the cats."
"I'll e-mail all that to you tonight or tomorrow," Gwen promised.
We talked a bit longer and I distinctly heard a sniffle or two from Gwen and we concluded with her urging me to hurry and to call her tomorrow.
The next week was a three-ring circus of arrangements and forwarding information. My nightly call to Gwen was always fun as we talked about what we done that day and one night Gwen really shocked and titillated me. As we were talking she said, "Listen to this" and the next thing I heard were squishing sounds. When she came back on the phone she asked, "Did you hear that?"
I said I did and she explained those were the sounds of her fingers in her pussy masturbating to the sounds of my voice. I was speechless. She then asked if I wanted to hear her cum.
I had the good sense to say, "Of course I do," and I then heard more of the same sounds and then the unmistakable vocal sounds of Gwen climaxing.
I held the phone as she came to her senses and she whispered, "That's how aroused I am for you."