What is fiction but an imagined reality?
* * * * *
1. I was the Vice President of Foreign Operations of a major bank and my wife, Millicent, was a teacher. She was active on the local zoning and hospital boards and managed the volunteers for the county library. I am a past president of our local Rotary Club. We were proud to be pillars of our local community.
Megan was the daughter of Henry Kelly, one of my best friends from college with whom I'd maintained intermittent contact. He'd moved away and now presided over a bank down in Alabama. Henry contacted me one day by email, telling me that Megan had been selected for a prestigious summer internship at a government banking oversight agency in our city and was looking for a place to stay. He knew that we had a big, rambling house, and that our own children were grown and had flown the nest. Megan was nineteen and had her own car, he said, so she could get herself around from our suburban neighborhood, and would not impose on us for transport.
My wife, Millicent and I agreed immediately. We were missing our kids, and the house was feeling a bit empty, so the thought of having a young person around was attractive. I emailed our acceptance right away. Henry's wife, Sarah, emailed back and Millicent arranged everything with her.
* * * * *
2. Megan arrived when I was at a business meeting in Europe, so the first thing I saw of her was the car with Alabama plates in the driveway when I got out of my taxi from the airport on my return. I went inside the house and Millicent told me, rather redundantly, that our houseguest had arrived. She had been lodged in the downstairs guest room. It used to serve as my study and while I had moved my computer out, my heavy wirelessly networked laser printer remained there in a corner.
Millicent knocked on the guest room door and asked Megan to come out and meet me. My first impression was shocked surprise. My friend Henry had never been a particularly good looking fellow, but his daughter Megan was incredibly pretty. She was elfin, a pocket Venus, barely over five feet tall, with very straight, shiny dark brown hair that cascaded down to the middle of her back. She had a lovely heart shaped face, with brown eyes and the creamy, smooth, white complexion that Southern girls are known for. Her breasts were firm and pleasingly plump, though petite to fit her diminutive frame. Her waist was tiny and her derriere was rounded and tight. She wore a very tight, short black skirt, a black and white crop top that left her midriff bare and very high heeled thong sandals to give herself some height. She had on a metal choker necklace and hoop earrings.
"Hello, I'm Megan Kelly," she said, advancing and offering me her hand. She had a charming Alabama accent, with just a little lilt. "It's pronounced KI-lly like KITE."
Of course, I'd known her father for years, so I knew this.
"I'm James Hardwicke," I said, shaking her hand.
"I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Hardwicke," she replied. "I want to thank you and Mrs. Hardwicke for taking me in like this. It is so very kind of you."
"It's no trouble at all," I said. "How's your father?"
"He's well, Mr. Hardwicke, and sends his best," she replied politely.
We chatted in the kitchen for a short while and I learned that Megan had skipped two years of school through an accelerated program and AP credits. Only nineteen, she was already a rising senior in college. Megan soon excused herself, saying she had to get to bed and be ready for work the next day.
Once we were alone, I had a quick bite to eat and Millicent filled me in with some more details. In her correspondence with Megan's mother Sarah, Millicent had learned that she was straight A student and had won a very competitive state-wide scholarship. Millicent told me that Megan left regularly every morning around eight, and worked long hours. Even after she came home, she spent most of her time in her room, working and studying.
"She sounds like she's nineteen, going on forty-five," I joked, as Millicent and I walked upstairs.
"Maybe she has a hidden wild side," said Millicent. "She has a lyre tattooed on her ankle."
"A lyre?"
"Alpha Chi Omega. She's a sorority girl."
* * * * *
3. Millicent and I met in college. She was a year behind me, I got her pregnant when she was a senior, and we were married immediately after she graduated. She has been a wonderful wife in every way. She's been very supportive of my career, and an excellent mother to our two children. She spent endless hours with them through the difficult years of middle school, high school, and college, when I was a bit of a stand-offish father. Thanks to her, they'd both graduated from Ivy League universities. Our son was working in the energy industry and our daughter was in graduate school. At forty-eight and forty-seven, we were empty nesters with a twenty-five year old son and a twenty-four year old daughter.
Millicent was a very businesslike, sensible woman, and quite attractive, but she was not particularly warm. She was not tactile, and did not enjoy physical touching. We'd had wild, hormone fueled sex as teenagers and in our early twenties. But after the children were born, her interest in sex became increasingly dutiful, rather than passionate. Eventually, by our thirties, she endured rather than enjoyed our physical coupling. While she met her conjugal obligations, she told me that she was only doing it to service my physical needs. Our sex life degenerated to a once-a-week affair, usually on weekends. Even then, it only took place if I did elaborate planning to ensure it was not too early (when she would be reading or watching television) and not too late (when she would be too sleepy). She never wanted the light on, and was always in a hurry to "get it over with".
In the last few years, we sometimes went months without sex. I confess that I resorted to pornography, initially the print and online magazines, and later the videos that were available on the internet. I enrolled in some online sex forums. I'm pretty fit -- I lift weights and am an avid runner. So the buff photos I posted of myself were genuine. I struck up chats with some women who hit on me, especially those who posted naughty photos of themselves. I enjoyed racy, suggestive online chats, often receiving explicit photos. I did this late at night after Millicent had gone to bed.
However, I was well aware that many of the participants in these forums were gang members and criminals, looking for extortion targets. I knew that I was probably chatting with some heavyset, swarthy man who looked like a boxer. So I never revealed any information about myself, and was never tempted to respond when the "women" in the chats asked to meet me in person.