I don't know which one of us initiated the encounter, and I have no memory of what happened. The whole incident is still a total blank, to this day. I only know that it happened because we woke up in my bed, in each other's arms. Both of us were painfully hung over, naked, and smelled of stale sex. As I disentangled myself from her arms, I caught a pretty good glimpse of Katie's body and, if I hadn't already had a severe case of 'morning wood', I'd have still been hard pretty quickly, because she was really beautiful. I'd had other women in that bed, and I couldn't recall even one of them who'd had a body to match hers.
We were both extremely embarrassed, of course, but it had happened; what could we do? We both mumbled apologies as we tried to cover up and slither out of bed. She used the top sheet as a wrap, while she collected her clothing from the floor and slipped across the hall to the guest bedroom where she'd slept all the other nights of her visit. I just sat up and turned away from her, leaning down to grab my boxers and put them on. On the way to the airport, we both tried to convince each other that it had simply been a case of drunken sex. It was an accident, and nothing would come of it. We promised each other that it would remain our secret, and that no one else really needed to know that it had ever happened, most especially Katie's husband.
The problem didn't vanish, then, of course. Our goodbye hug, at the airport, was a bit awkward, partly because we were both still embarrassed over the incident, and partly because I hadn't been able to get the image of my beautiful, naked sister out of my mind, and I was more than a bit hard and had to try and hug her without letting her feel that lump in my jeans. The guilt set in, then, as I watched her board the airplane for her flight home. I loved Katie very much, and there was a part of my conscience that was telling me that, drunk or not, I still shouldn't have let the incident happen. Still (and here's where the real problem raised its ugly head!), despite my guilt, shame, and embarrassment, I felt an odd warmth in my groin as I watched her board her flight. She had a really hot body, for a mother of two who was fast approaching forty, and the slight sway of her hips and buttocks as she climbed those boarding stairs was truly a sight to behold!
What the hell am I thinking?
I asked myself.
We stayed in touch, after that, but never repeated the visitation.
The years flew by, and I went through a ton of girlfriends. None of them could handle the month-on, month-off schedule. They all strayed and found new boyfriends, eventually. I had one gal who lasted four hitches (eight months). She cleared out her stuff (and a lot of my possessions, as well) when she left and, try as I might, I couldn't track her down to get my stuff back. Needless to say, that was the last time I trusted a woman with a key to my house. It was also probably the last time I really tried to find a woman I could have a relationship with, as well. Oh, sure, I found the occasional lady and "got my itch scratched", but I wasn't looking for any sort of commitments.
I also got a vasectomy. I was approaching the point where, even if I
was
lucky enough to find that one special woman, I was getting too old to be looking at starting a family with her. Too, I didn't want any more 'surprises', like the one I got when Launa announced that she was pregnant with Tommy.
Shortly after their son Adam finished college, Katherine called me to say she and Jim were getting a divorce. They had raised their kids and put them both through college and, now that their kids were leaving the nest, her husband decided that he'd go, too. As it turned out, he'd been having an affair for a couple years, with a younger engineer, at the firm where he was working.
This meant that my sister would be forty-four years old, with two years worth of college credits in engineering (only some of which would still transfer, due to their age), no husband, no income (as she'd been a stay-at-home mom and housewife) and a small monthly alimony check for a few years. It was very disheartening, for her, and only the support she'd received from her kids, Adam and Zane, had gotten her through the worst of it. We spoke on several occasions, during her divorce, but we hadn't communicated much in the past few months.
In June of that same year, Tommy made his last summer visit to my place in Corpus before starting college. The summer visits kept us close and, despite Launa's constant denigration of me, to him, I think he genuinely enjoyed coming to see me. Typically, he'd be at my house for the entire month of June. It was during this particular visit that he told me he'd been accepted to NC State. I was so happy and proud of him, I bought him a brand new Ford Taurus, so that he could come and go as he needed. I loved Tommy; he really was a great kid.
He'd done really well, in his studies, but not well enough to qualify for a scholarship, when my income was figured into the equation. When I told him that the college fund I'd set aside for him would pay his living expenses and tuition, plus cover some 'fun' stuff, his face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. His mother hadn't married very well, after me, it seemed, and it was pretty clear (from some comments he made) that his step dad, Pete, didn't care much for him, or kids, in general, for that matter. He was glad to have Tommy headed off to college, and no longer at home to interfere with whatever he and Launa decided to do on the spur of the moment, but he was too cheap (or, perhaps, just too damn broke!) to offer him a penny toward his college costs.
I was both proud, and sad, the day Tommy left my place. My son was all grown up and, in another month or so, he'd be headed off to college. We'd talked a lot about what he could expect during his first year at college, and I'd given him lots of pointers based on my own experience. My last advice to him, before he drove off, was, "Always use protection. Women aren't always truthful about being on the pill. I would never change having you as a son, but I would have liked having control of the timing. I'd also want to make sure I loved the woman, and she loved me, with a trial period of at least a year."
Before she'd left to fly home, after her previous visit with me, I'd made sure that Katie had a phone number to reach me on the rig (the company had lines set aside for employee calls) as well as my home phone. About two weeks before the end of my September hitch, Katie called me to say that her divorce was final, and she wanted to come down for my thirty-eighth birthday, in October. I said I would love to see her and I'd be happy to pay for the flight. This time, she insisted she was driving. She claimed that she'd discovered, on her previous visit to my place, that she didn't like airplane travel. I was about to come off the rig when she phoned me, from Atlanta, to tell me how close she was. As I boarded the helicopter for the short flight to Corpus, the memory of what had happened on the last day of her last visit came flooding back to me and, try as I might, I couldn't get it out of my mind. She hadn't mentioned it at all, in any of our recent phone calls to plan her visit, but that didn't stop me from being extremely tense, throughout the flight, or from hoping that the incident wouldn't change things for us, too much.
When the chopper touched down at the company's hangar on the private side of the airport, I found my truck in the parking lot, tossed my bags into the cargo bed, and drove home, still fussing and worrying about how our time together would go. Stepping through the door of my place, I took a long look around the house, noting its condition, and the month-long layer of dust that had accumulated over all of the furnishings, and decided that I needed to tidy up. I'm not a slob, by any means; I'm simply a bachelor who spends a month at a time away from home, and who seldom entertains guests. I worked steadily, into the late evening, and was nearly finished when Katie arrived.
The doorbell rang and I walked over to answer it. "Oh, I didn't think you'd be here till tomorrow," I said, looking at my watch. "It's only ten o'clock; you must have been flying," I chided her.
"Yes, I'll admit I was traveling with purpose," she said, dragging a huge roller bag behind her as she stepped into the house. "The closer I got, the more excited I was, to see you again. I caught a couple hours worth of cat-nap at a service plaza just outside Atlanta, and then drove the rest of the way. I had this adrenaline surge, because I was getting close, and, well, here I am."
"I'm glad you made it safely here, Katie," I smiled, hugging her. Then, taking her roller bag, I asked, "Is this everything? Last time you came, you had two big suitcases, for a week's visit."
"There's more in the minivan, but it can wait until tomorrow."
Looking out at her Honda Odyssey, visible in the light of the small lamp-post by the driveway, I could just make out that it was stuffed to the brim. "Is that all of your stuff, in there?" I asked smiling.
Katherine blushingly answered, "I thought I might stay here a while, before I decide what to do. Is that OK?"
"Sure thing, Sis. I have plenty of space, here." I said kind of surprised. "I um - I didn't know you were even considering a move."
"I just had to get away from that asshole, Jim," she replied, getting really worked up. "He doesn't think he owes me anything. The lawyers have it all settled, but he won't let things be. We're splitting the proceeds from the sale of the house, and I get fifteen thousand a year, alimony, for the next ten years or until I get remarried. I also got half of his retirement savings moved into a retirement fund for me. He couldn't fight any of that, because it was what the courts ordered, so he's just phoning, or coming around at odd times, unannounced, to harass me. I didn't feel much like putting up with that, so I sold the rest of my stuff and left. I wanted to get away, and go somewhere where I could forget about the whole ordeal."
