Having never previously travelled further than the Canary Islands, I was now sat on the balcony of a Los Angeles hotel, sipping cocktails; I'd even seen the 'HOLLYWOOD' sign, so it had to be true! I hadn't felt happier in two months and three days; which was the day on which this story really began:
I won the holiday -- two weeks, visiting Los Angeles,San Francisco and Las Vegas -- in a competition when I renewed our car's insurance; I'm sure we've all seen/entered those, you know you won't win, but it's only a five minute survey, so what the heck. I was overjoyed and began phoning everyone to relay the good news, but sadly the elation only lasted until my husband Jack got back from work and I heard his response to the news of our holiday: See if you can't get some money instead; we can't go away in October, that's during the football season."
Him and his fucking football team! Jack's never missed a home game in almost twenty years and not even a free trip to America was going to be allowed to break that tradition; I was livid: "Well sod you and sod Doncaster fucking Rovers too! I'm going! On my own if I have to!" Jack laughed in my face and I stormed from the room before he saw my welling tears. The next few weeks were distressing, half of our family and friends sided with Jack, the other half with me; there was no 'cash alternative' to the holiday and it was in mine and Jack's names so couldn't be transferred. We both remained intransigent -- hell, we barely even spoke! - but everyone, not least Jack, knew that my finding the courage to go to the USA alone was never going to happen.
It was our daughter Anna who casually tossed a cat amongst the pigeons: "You could take my Jack with you; he's got spare holidays from work that he needs to use and I know he'd love to visit the USA." I was gobsmacked. For a heap of reasons that are unimportant here, Anna's-Jack -- which is how he's invariably known in the family -- took our surname when he and Anna got married; I dug out and scanned the holiday confirmation which clearly read 'Jack Halliday', but it showed no address, or anything else which might designate exactly which 'Jack Halliday' could use the booking. Refusing to get my hopes up I phoned Anna back and enquired if she'd actually asked her-Jack and and only when she answered did I allow my hopes to soar: "No, I thought I ought to suggest it to you first, but it was Jack himself that I got the idea from; he's twice said 'well Carol could always ask me, I'd jump at the chance'. Wait one moment..." I heard a mumbled conversation and a few seconds later Anna was back on the line: "Jack says yes please."
Things moved apace arranging visas, buying new clothes and the like, but at least I didn't waste time on grocery shopping or preparing meals and such for my own Jack; he'd brought this on himself so he could damned-well fend for himself while I was away. Jack (mine) having eventually accepted that I was going anyway, conceded that he would perhaps come with me, but my response was brusque: "You're too late now, I've already submitted the details for Anna's-Jack's, they can't be changed." The look on his face was a picture, made more especially satisfying by the knowledge that it wasn't actually true, that information was still sat in my handbag and I didn't send it until the following day! Just to rub it in further, I insisted that he join Anna in driving Anna's-Jack and myself to the airport to wave us off : ).
An initial flight took us to Baltimore and it was as we waited there for our connection to LA that I got the first indication of what I might've let myself in for: When Jack went to the bathroom, a lady -- American of course, they're so much more forward than we Brits -- of about my own age and sitting nearby gave me a cheeky smile and whispered: "Way to go honey, that one looks like being fun; exhausting...but fun." I suffered a few seconds of confusion before realisation dawned and I then turned beet red. Jack & I were clearly travelling for pleasure rather than business and it was equally apparent that he wasn't my son; I like to think that I don't 'look my age', but Anna's-Jack is twenty-two years my junior and that discrepancy remained obvious -- she thought I was travelling with my Toy Boy! I was too flustered to explain and too embarrassed to mention the incident to Jack on his return; it was a relief to hear our flight called and hurry away, but the lady caught my eye as we parted and gave me another meaningful smile and a thumbs-up signal too.
Following that incident I became more aware and began to notice that quite a few women of a certain age who marked Jack and I as a 'couple', would immediately run an appraising eye over his 6'2" frame and if they also caught my eye, would share a secretive and often rather covetous smile. I quickly lost that feeling of needing to correct them, indeed I found myself clinging to Jack just a little bit tighter; it was quite the novelty and something an ego boost, to bathe in their misconstrued envy. It was during that second flight when I discovered the complication which their yearnings had caused, it seemed that the fantasies and dreams of those Cougars had triggered my own flights of fancy. These were far from seemly when I was awake and thumbing distractedly through a magazine, but during the two hours which I slept en-route to LA, my dreams turned down right indecent; I awoke so flushed that Jack expressed concern, but he was the last person in whom I was going to confide.
With the change in time zones we arrived reasonably early, but it had been a long day so having reached our hotel -- by way of that Hollywood sign, at my insistence -- we agreed that a quiet dinner at the hotel, followed by an early night was the way to go. We'd known all along that we'd be sharing a room, but each of us had promised that we didn't snore and we'd seen that all the hotels were providing two queen sized beds in our rooms; so all that was required was to behave like the adults we both were and respect each others privacy. The theory had sounded good, but we suffered the first faux-pas getting ready for dinner that very evening: Jack showered first, returned to the bedroom wearing a bathrobe and passed dominion of the bathroom over to me; I'm sure that he also said he was going out onto the balcony? I'd barely been in the bathroom for a minute before realising that I'd forgotten my make-up bag and without thought popped back to the bedroom to get it.
I intruded upon Jack at a most inappropriate moment and the situation perhaps wasn't helped by my only being clad in a bra and panties myself; averting my eyes, I grabbed the damned bag and scuttled red-faced and apologising back into the bathroom. I was in there a very long time, I'm sure Jack must've thought I'd drowned? My mind was in a tizzy, so besides being none too eager to go back out to discuss what'd happened, I was trying to untangle those thoughts that our encounter had unleashed: Jack had been stark naked and his tawny body was every bit as buff as one might imagine, his days as a professional sportsman were over -- a knee injury -- but he was still clearly working out regularly and that cock... how on earth did Anna accommodate that? I really couldn't have avoided seeing it; semi-erect and resting in his hand as he lightly stroked the length of it; what, indeed whom was he thinking about as he'd been doing that?
