Our Love Story

Prologue

From a purely personal point of view, happiness is extremely difficult to describe. We are either happy or we are unhappy, and it seems that there is little we can do, however hard we may strive, to make ourselves happy. The story I am going to tell, is about two people, and how they eventually found happiness. Before the events described here, if they had thought about it, neither would have described themselves as particularly unhappy, although they were both aware that there was something missing in their lives. However one fact stands out and that is that they were both extremely lonely, filling their time with 'doing' in an attempt to fill the emotional void by being busy.

Chapter 1 - Tony's Story

You may have read elsewhere my wife Lacy's account elsewhere of the way in which we met and the events leading up to our recent wedding. If not, might I suggest that you do, because it is really rather beautiful, and I still find it very moving each time I read it. Even though I think she might be exaggerating a little about the impression I made on that evening when I gave a talk to the adult education group of which she was a member, we were definitely attracted to each other from the start. This was perhaps because we were both rather lonely people, although for my part it could have been because of the interest that she took in my subject, which was rather flattering.

But to start at the beginning, I am Tony, Prof. A. Alexander as the name plate says on my door at the university where I teach, Prof T to my students - Lacy got it a bit wrong there, referring to me as Dr. Alexander, or perhaps the organizers did, it is not important now. I was born in a small town in New England, where my family had lived since my paternal grandfather had migrated from Scotland in the latter half of the nineteenth century. My mother's family had an even longer American pedigree, having been among some of the earliest Puritan settlers from England back in the early seventeenth century. When I was thirteen, my father was posted to the Embassy in London as a cultural attaché, where he remained for the next ten years. It is for this simple reason that, though I am a U.S. citizen, I sound more English than American, as my colleagues delight in pointing out.

We rented a nice house with a large garden in what is referred to as the Home Counties, a few miles from the centre of London, and I went the local grammar school, and then when I was eighteen, to study for my BA at Cambridge. At school we played football, soccer to Americans, in the winter, and cricket in what passes for summer in the U.K. I found soccer quite an easy game to pick up, but it took rather longer to understand cricket, a game which seems quite impenetrable to most Americans, so much so that I have given up trying to explain the rules to colleagues and friends. There was a great deal of cricket on terrestrial television in those days, although these days it has become the exclusive preserve of pay-to-view satellite channels, and after a couple of years I became an ardent follower of the game. I became a quite passable spin bowler, and played for the school first team in my senior year, and I for the college team when I went to university. These days I still try to follow the game, mainly via the Internet, which would otherwise be impossible in the U.S.

At school I gravitated to the arts, although, being a very forward looking establishment, all students studied a core curriculum of both arts and sciences. At A level, the examinations students study for in their last two years, I specialized in History, Geography and English, graduating with the top grades necessary to get a place at Cambridge University. As a family we took our holidays in Europe, visiting many of the art galleries and museums, which is what sparked my interest in art history, however I was never more than a competent artist myself, although in recent years I have developed an interest in photography of the more artistic kind. However, my first visit to Europe was not with my family, but happened when in the spring just after my fifteenth birthday, when I stayed with a family in Paris, as part of a student exchange program. Ever since I have had a fondness for Europe, with its rich cultural history going back more than 2,000 years.

At Cambridge I studied for a BA in History, although I found my inclinations gradually changing, and for my final year dissertation, I wrote a paper on the use of art as a political tool during the French Revolution. After three years I graduated with a first class honors degree, which was enough to get me a doctoral place at The George Washington University in Washington DC. Of course, life at Cambridge was not all about study. As I have said, I played cricket for my college Pembroke, but I also joined in the debates at the Cambridge University Union Society, more commonly known just as the Cambridge Union. I even did a little bit of acting in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, although by no means could I be described as a good singer, although it was good fun. Cambridge University in those days was a predominantly male establishment, so chances to meet girls of my own age were rather limited. It was perhaps my lack of experience that might have been one of the reasons for the later failure of my first marriage.

It was at George Washington that I met my first wife Carol. She was several years younger than me, studying for a first degree in English, with the view to becoming a school teacher. We first met at a ball, and I was immediately captivated by her vivacity. Despite my shyness, I plucked up courage to ask her to go with me to a play the following week, and we started dating soon after that. Armed with my PhD, I managed to get a job at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, and although the salary was not all that great, it was a secure position with good prospects for advancement, sufficient we thought to set up home together, and Carol and I got married a few months later. Carol was able to get a job as a junior teacher in an elementary school, and after a year in rented accommodation, we had saved up enough from our joint salaries to be able to buy a small house in Fairfax VA. However, I'm afraid that I wasn't particularly successful when it came to marriage, and Carol left me when we had been married for just over ten years. I suppose that one reason might have been our failure to have children — we never did find out why — but I have to admit that the fault was chiefly mine, most of my energy going into establishing my career. As an art historian it was necessary for me to be away from home a lot, studying at the major museums and art galleries in Europe and America. These trips were often for quite extended periods, and I suppose it was no surprise that my wife found consolation for her loneliness with another man. After she had left, we lost contact, and I never bothered to file for divorce; more surprisingly Carol didn't either, but she must have had her reasons.

I was still a young man in my prime when Carol left me, and definitely not asexual, though I have met some academics in my time who were. Like all men I found relief by masturbating whilst looking at pictures of scantily clad young ladies in girly magazines. That was in the early years, but with the development of the Internet, I found a number of websites that suited my taste and inclinations. I was never drawn to the more extreme sites, pictures of pretty girls displaying all their naked charms was quite enough for me, and I discovered a number of models who became favorites. Because of my profession, I was particularly interested in variations in the human form. I became rather an expert on nude female anatomy and more specifically, a connoisseur of the intriguing variety of women's pudenda. A nice smile however, was still the most attractive feature of these young ladies.

I also had a number of brief liaisons with women I met in the course of my travels, but I always drew the line at my students, which I knew would have been unethical and an abuse of my position. There was one third year student who crossed the line, but I quickly dealt with the situation. She asked me if she could see me in my room to discuss the grade I had given her for her latest essay. I asked her to sit down while I looked in the filing cabinet for her folder, and when I turned round again, she had stripped down to her underwear, and was about to undo her bra. I smartly opened the door, and called for my secretary, although I knew that she had gone home for the night, and when I turned round again, the student was struggling back into her jeans. Once she was fully dressed, I told her firmly that such behavior would not get her better grades, and never to try anything of the sort again.

I do remember with particular fondness a beautiful young French woman, who was a fellow lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris, where I spent several months as a visiting professor in the spring and summer of 2008. Paris in the spring is a magical place, and if you have never been there on the first day of May, when there are street sellers everywhere, with their bunches of Lily of the Valley, then you haven't really lived. The delicious scent of those flowers still brings back wonderful memories of days and nights with Jeannine, and of making love in the long grass by the banks of some backwater of the Seine after a day spent touring some of the quaint little villages made famous by the Impressionist painters. Jeannine was wonderful company, a highly intelligent and entertaining conversationalist, and a very kind and sweet person person. It was just a plus that she had intriguingly prominent labia, which gripped my penis most deliciously as I slid in and out of her hot velvety vagina, before emptying my seed deep inside her, in orgasms of such sweet intensity. Our dalliance lasted right through the summer, and when I had to return to America in the autumn, there were a lot of tears and promises to write, and we have indeed kept in touch sporadically. A couple of years later, I was delighted when she wrote to tell me she was getting married, and I sent her a gift of a bronze sculpture of a bucking horse in memory of our brief love affair.

In 2010 I had a rather longer love affair with the wife of a colleague in the Department of Geography, while he was on a year-long posting in Antarctica, studying the effects of climate change. While it was not with his connivance, she did tell him about us, and after his return we ended our affair, with a few tears on both sides, but without recriminations. I cannot deny that sex with Karen was very good, but there was no chance of us falling in love more than just a little; we had known each other for many years, and she was deeply in love with her husband. It was merely a matter of favorable circumstances, our mutual physical attraction, and Karen's need. She was a passionate woman who enjoyed sex, and she found Geoff's absence very difficult.

Karen was sexually very imaginative, and knew just how to tease a man to bring him to a pitch of excitement, which made the ultimate climax an experience of piercing ecstasy. We were very discreet, as neither of us had any desire to see Geoff humiliated, so we limited our sessions of lovemaking to Saturday nights, usually at her home, but occasionally at mine. Since we didn't live very far apart, we would would walk rather than take the car, in order not to arouse any suspicion, and to prevent tongues wagging. Generally, we would meet for a leisurely dinner, with candles and wine - Karen was a much more accomplished cook than me, which is why we usually met at her home - and only then would we make our way to the bedroom for a night of hot sex. Watching Karen strip for me, seductively removing each garment, soon had me hard and throbbing, and she liked to watch me stroking my cock as she danced. Once we were both naked we fucked in very possible way, and I would often come three or four times over the course of a torrid night.

I did feel some guilt at cuckolding my friend in this way, but I rationalized that it was better that Karen assuaged her need with me rather than a succession of unsuitable and unscrupulous men, who would only take advantage of her loneliness. Relations between Geoff and me were a bit strained at first after his return from Antarctica, but after a long night in a bar, when we both drank rather too much whisky, we agreed to let bygones be bygones, and we are still friends, though perhaps not quiet as close as we once were.

In all the years since Carol left me, I never really fell in love with anyone, certainly not enough to want to have a long-term relationship, and on the whole I was quite content to continue in my bachelor life. That was until I met Lacy, who is now my wife, but that is the subject of a later chapter. But before I recount those events, it is necessary to tell you all that I learned about her in the weeks we were courting.

Chapter 2 - Lacy's Story

Lacy was born in the city of San Diego, the second child in a large family, and the first girl. I got the impression that her childhood was not all that happy, except for those times when her father would read to her at bedtime. Unfortunately he worked long hours as a civilian at the US Naval Base, and Lacy, who was devoted to him, found his absence very difficult. Her mother came from a poor family in Los Angeles who had lost everything during the Great depression, harsh years which had turned her into a rather joyless and critical person. As soon as Lacy was old enough she was given a list of household chores to carry out, which left very little time for play.

When she was six or seven years old, her father was posted to Hawaii following a promotion, and these were idyllic times, but when she was eleven he moved again for the final time to the Naval Base in Norfolk Virginia. Perhaps it was the result of moving at critical times in her schooling, but also perhaps due to lack of parental encouragement, mainly on the part of her mother, but Lacy did poorly in school, and left at the age of sixteen to work in a shop. Despite the long working hours, she was still expected to help with the cooking and cleaning at home, and also in looking after her younger siblings. Deep in her heart, however, she knew that she could do better, and in what little spare time she had, she taught herself to type using an antiquated machine she found under a layer of dust in the attic. Armed with this new skill, she applied for, and got, a job as a very junior clerk at the major city hospital, and slowly began to work her way up the ladder by hard work and diligence.

One of her tasks was to prepare the requisitions for equipment needed by various hospital departments, and this was how she met the man whom she later married. Jim was the head of the hospital maintenance department, and would regularly bring lists of things that were needed, and Lacy would then find the best suppliers and cheapest prices, before typing up the list for the finance department, who would place the actual orders. After several months of this, one afternoon Jim didn't leave after giving Lacy his list, but hung around by her desk, and then quite out of the blue, told her that he had tickets for an amateur performance of Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma at his church, and wondered if she would like to accompany him. She was very surprised by this, as Jim was at least fifteen years older than her by her estimation, and she had thought that he must certainly be married, but she accepted, as much to get out of the house for an evening than in any attraction. That first date led to others, and over the course of the next few weeks Lacy found out that Jim was a widower whose wife had died from an inoperable brain tumor a couple of years before.

Lacy and Jim were married a few weeks after her twenty first birthday, and led a very ordinary, but contented, life for the next twenty two years, although sadly they were unable to have children. After they had been married for five years, they moved from Richmond to a new house in Fairfax, not far from where I was living. Lacy was fortunate enough not to have to work, as Jim's income had more than provided for them both, and she left her job at the hospital just before they moved. Although she was sad not to have a family, she didn't more about it and spent her time with charity events and sports. While Jim enjoyed his weekly round of golf, she loved tennis, running, swimming, and was a member of a women's softball team for over 20 years. When I met her she was still in very good shape for a woman of forty seven, with a trim figure, and a nice bosom. It was shortly after his fifty eighth birthday that Jim had his first heart attack. He seemed to have recovered well at first, but started to develop severe angina after a couple of years, and his doctor told them that he would need a bypass at some point in the future. Unfortunately, two years later, he had another heart attack while Lacy was out visiting her family in Richmond, and by the time she got back home it was too late, and he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The two years after her husband died were very difficult for Lacy. Her friends were very kind to her, and she says that she couldn't really claim to have been lonely, and at times would have valued a little space to come to terms with her loss. But as she told me, what she missed was not company, but the physical intimacy that she realized she had often taken for granted, the loving cuddling, the touch of Jim's hands, the sound of his voice, and above all his masculine scent.

Of course, once a decent period of grieving had passed, her friends went out of their way to introduce her to eligible men of her own age, mainly widowers, although some were living in sham marriages, where all love and intimacy had died, and there was one very nice man whose wife was in the final stages of dementia and who no longer knew who he was. However, none of them really attracted her as a potential partner because the vital spark just wasn't there. She had known friends who became so lonely and desperate that they were willing to say yes to any man that would pay attention to them, but she was determined to avoid this because it could only lead to disappointment and pain. If she was to enter into a long-term relationship with anyone, she at least wanted it to be someone who ignited her interest in them as a person.

Like many long married couples Lacy and Jim's sex life had become rather unexciting — vanilla sex she called it — more a matter of habit than passion, but no less loving for that. In the last year of her husband's illness, sex became impossible, and she found other ways to satisfy her libido. At first she just pleasured herself with her fingers, but she found that she missed the feeling of a man inside her and bought a couple of sex toys from an online store. While she did not find these as satisfying as the real thing, they did allow her to have a very satisfactory climax, and occasionally she would reach levels of pleasure comparable to sex with her husband.

This all changed in a fashion that Lacy still describes as miraculous. In an attempt to get out of herself she enrolled in adult education classes in art history at a local college, where a series of visiting experts would come to give lectures on subjects as diverse as the techniques of the early European masters, and the place of art in shaping social attitudes. It happened that one evening in early November, an otherwise dreary and depressing day, I was the lecturer, and Lacy claims that she was immediately attracted to me. She tells me that she thought I was quite distinguished looking with well groomed hair and near little beard, which is very flattering, and she particularly noticed that I had taken good care to keep myself in trim. For my part, I really cannot see what was so special about me, an ordinary middle aged man in my fifties, but attraction is such a mysterious thing