All Characters In This Story Are 18+ Years Old
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The Pasadena morning sun shone bright and warm on June 19, 1977. For Ben James, 43-year old Regional Sales Manager for Warner Lambert pharmaceuticals, Father's Day was off to a great start. He took a second sip of his Bloody Mary, with extra Worcestershire for his hangover, and surveyed his backyard. A deep lawn surrounded by high plastered brick walls, overlaid with bougainvillea, spread below a broad Spanish tiled patio abutting the deck and apron of a full-size swimming pool many community centers would love to have. "Made in the shade, Ben, boy!" He thought to himself under the umbrella canopy of the large white wrought iron table. H squinted at some crushed primroses and scratched up earth in the flower bed behind the green canvas lawn swing. "What the hell?" He wondered, making a mental note to tell Carla to chew out the Mexican gardener. "But not today." He said out loud, putting his old-fashioned glass on the table.
"'Not today' what, dear?" Carla asked, stepping from the kitchen with a pitcher of fresh squeezed orange juice on a tray with four flute glasses. Ben watched his wife set down the tray. She was three years junior to him, but, admittedly, she looked essentially as young and as pretty as she had when he met her in 1958 at a USC fraternity function. As she bent down, her tank top neckline fell away from her and she flashed an unimpaired view of her bountiful breast tops, encased in a plunging underwire bra with daring cups, which exposed the upper inner quadrant of her large areolae. Her thick nipples asserted themselves against the soft white lace. He ogled her and reflected, for the umpteenth time, "What if we hadn't fucked that night?" He shook the thought from his mind as she straightened up and removed the view.
"'Not today, Josephine,'" Ben said with an enigmatic smile, deflecting the question to avoid argument over the flowers.
"Carla laughed. "You mean 'not to-NIGHT, Josephine,' don't you?" She asked, correcting the referenced ubiquitous, but unlikely, quote. "But, anyway, I'm glad to hear it... I haven't recovered from LAST night's romp!" She grinned and winked at her husband.
Ben made no effort to hide his bewilderment. "What the hell are you talking about?" He asked, deciding not to add "You dumb daffy cunt!"
Unfazed by Ben's confused look, Carla replied, "I'm talking about... LAST... NIGHT..." She made goo-goo eyes, licked her lips and sashayed her hips in her khaki culottes, before finishing, "...you TIGER, you!" Carla stepped around the table, kissed the top of his head and asked, "Another Bloody Mary, dear? I'll serve breakfast when I see the whites of Claude's and Kristy's eyes."
"Holy shit!" Ben exclaimed as his mind raced. "Did I... did we..."
"Un-huh... you DID... we DID... and THANK you!" Carla gave the incomplete question an equally equivocal reply.
Claude walked onto the patio just as Ben was saying, "In that case, yes, I'll have another Bloody Mary."
"Easy does it, Dad," Claude cautioned. "You want to be sober enough to duck any foul tips!" He laughed, then noticed his father wasn't understanding the joke. "Didn't Mom tell you I wanted to go see the Dodgers break back on the Cubs today? With you? For Father's Day? Sutton's pitching, so it should be a cinch."
Ben quickly recovered and said, "Oh, yeah. That's 1 p.m., right?" He looked at his Bulova and saw it was not yet quite 10 o'clock. "Well, you're right, son... Hey! Carla!" He called to his departing wife, "Cancel that drink. Coffee and O.J. are fine." He heard Carla acknowledge the change and then said, "Speaking of 'fine', look who's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!" Ben cast a long lascivious look at Kristy Stauffer, his 22-year old Executive Marketing Assistant Intern, as she joined their company. She wore a white pleated polyester mini-skirt with a bare-midriff red, white and green peppermint-striped puckered rayon halter top. Per usual, needing no structural support, Kristy wore no bra. Her nipples rose like Hershey's Kisses against the delicate fabric crisscrossing her chest. Her smooth, freshly shaved legs tapered into sockless white Keds tennis shoes.