Chapter One - Introduction :
I first met Louise one night, many years ago, when she and her husband, Ross, ventured into the coffeehouse establishment where my band and I were performing. They were immediately noticeable, as they were easily the oldest couple in the room and tended to stand out rather dramatically amongst the usual rabble of rowdy college students.
During one of our breaks, they managed to flag down one of the band members, who later introduced them to the rest of us. They both seemed very nice and were full of intelligent, insightful questions relating to the music business and the local music scene in general, so conversation was easy and never strained.
We warmed to them rather quickly, and before long they became regulars at the coffeehouse whenever we were performing there, even following us to other venues around the city.
We were invited to dinner and enjoyed the company and the cooking. As time went on, we became more and more frequently invited for dinner parties and social get-togethers, and our friendship grew.
When a day arrived when we found ourselves in need of a new house to rent, Louise took it upon herself to search the rental housing in her neighborhood and, as luck would have it, located the perfect house for us that was only two houses away from her own. As neighbors, we were constantly visiting back and forth and, as Louise was as much a coffee fanatic as I, I spent a great many of my mornings sharing coffee at her kitchen table and gossiping. The bond of friendship between all of us grew even more, and most especially between Louise and me, who shared many countless hours together, several days a week, sharing confidences and even intimate details about ourselves, and others, over our morning coffees.
One might easily surmise that, because of our close friendship, there might very well have been at least some underlying measure of physical attraction between Louise and me, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth. From the very beginning, my relationship with Louise was completely platonic in every respect. She was, after all, a married woman whose husband I also considered a very good friend. Simply put, we enjoyed each other's company, and there was never a hint of flirtation, or innuendo, or any other behavior that might, in any way, be interpreted as anything more than platonic friendship.
Not that I was at all above being flirtatious with married women, I was certainly no angel in that regard. It can be simply stated that, for all intents and purposes, Louise was just not the type of woman that I was particularly attracted to physically. At forty years of age, she was nineteen years my senior and the mother of two children. She was rather plain in appearance, with brown eyes and plain, unstyled, medium-length brown hair. Her countenance was not unattractive by any means, she most often merely suffered from a lack of care and attention to hair and makeup. She was shorter than I, probably not much more than five-foot-five or six, but probably outweighed me by thirty or forty pounds. Her body shape appeared to be somewhat pear shaped, with seemingly slender shoulders and medium bust swelling to wide fleshy hips and plump thighs. For the first several months that I knew her, I don't believe I ever saw her in anything but baggy shapeless sweat-style pants with a pullover sweater, sweatshirt or blouse, which seemed to emphasize the unappealing aspects of her figure even more. All in all, Louise seemed very much a rather unremarkable figure of femininity, and, with all of the attractive young ladies that were always so plentiful and readily available to the band, was certainly not one to ever attract my more libidinous attentions.
About a year after moving into Louise's neighborhood, we in the band decided that, in the interest of economy, we would all seek out separate, cheaper accommodations. Most of the guys had family nearby or outside friends with whom they could impose upon, but I was without family or friendly resources other than Ross and Louise. One night, while playing cards, I asked Ross if he would ever entertain the possibility of taking me in as a boarder. Both Ross and Louise responded with warmth and enthusiasm and I was soon firmly ensconced in my own room, set aside by curtains, in a corner of their basement.
It was while living at their house that an event occurred that was to forever change my relationship with Louise. On that particular night, during one of their frequent dinner parties, I was introduced to a woman named Marlene, a friend of the family and a recent divorcee. She had apparently been invited to stay for a couple of days, in the guest bedroom, while her apartment was being painted and re-carpeted. Ross seemed especially enthusiastic about pushing us together that evening, and I certainly didn't mind, Marlene was an exceptionally attractive woman with a stunning body.
