7 comments/ 38598 views/ 5 favorites Life Next Ch. 01 By: C.C. Rider Author’s note: This is a story of love, not sex – an erotic coupling of hearts, not bodies (necessarily). A romance in the end, I suppose, though not a typical offering. My goal was to tell the story of two people almost entirely through their conversation. Virtually nothing is revealed except through the voices of the characters – so be forewarned. ***** We were seated on the restaurant’s patio under a trellis of leafy grape vines and a strand of white lights. I wasn’t used to the humidity in L.A. I had been on a plane from crackling dry Las Vegas only two hours before, so I hadn’t had a chance to decompress, and small beads of perspiration were gathered on my forehead. I had asked the hostess to seat us inside at first, but then I saw Addie’s frown. “Then again, the patio does look inviting,” I had said to the hostess to correct our course. I could endure the sultry air for Addie. We sat without speaking for a moment. Her eyes laughed and flirted, just like when we were kids. “I am so glad we could make this happen,” I said. “I hardly got a chance to speak to you at the reunion.” “Do you come to L.A. often?” she asked. I wished I could have said yes. “No, not on business like this. We used to take the kids to Disneyland every few years, but not anymore.” “It’s not ‘cool enough’ for them now.” “It’s not that. It’s my wife; Rebecca has lupus. Her joints hurt all the time. I suppose I should take the kids myself, before they really are too old and it isn’t ‘cool.’” “How old are they again.” “Twelve and ten.” “Your daughter is twelve, right?” she said with a knowing smile. “Yes, the hormone ride has definitely started. She is so sweet though; we hope she doesn’t give us too much trouble.” We were quiet for a moment and I heard the wind against the building high above us. I noticed faint wisps of gray in her jet-black curls. So she didn’t use dye. It would be so easy for her, with such dark hair. Good for her. “So your boyfriend, um…” I snapped my fingers lightly like I couldn’t recall his name. She knew I was teasing her. “You mean Dave?” She raised her eyebrows. His name was Rob, and she knew I knew that. I laughed. We had fallen right back into our easy ways. It seemed so natural. “No, that’s not it. Your other boyfriend, the one that had so much fun at our reunion.” Rob had picked up a nametag of someone who couldn’t make it and had pretended to be one of us, with some humorous results. “Oh him.” “He’s a lot older than you, isn’t he?” She knew it was a compliment. “Just a couple years.” “You’re kidding. Really?” Now I was going to take a real shot at him. “I bet you and he didn’t go to his twenty-fifth.” “No, we didn’t.” “Not ‘cool enough’ for him?” She smiled coyly, with me. “Something like that,” she said conceding he had been a bit smug. “I thought he was funny,” I conceded. “I’ll probably do the same thing at my wife’s twenty-fifth – make fun of all the staid and pudgy Midwesterners.” “He wasn’t making fun.” I rolled my eyes. “Stop it, Mark.” “Yes Addie.” Our waitress introduced herself as Gwen and asked for our drink order. Addie handed her menu to Gwen. “You order for me,” she said looking at me with her warm golden-brown eyes. She had done the exact same thing twenty-five years earlier at dinner on the night of our senior prom. And she smiled, like then, but the light in her eyes seemed different now, less magical. There were some scars, I thought. “Oh no, not another challenge,” I replied. “No challenge; I like everything. You know that.” I remembered her generous and adventurous appetite. I admired that about her. “Okay. A double Stoly martini for her – lemon slices, no olives. I’ll have a double Glenfidditch rocks. Addie started to speak but waited for the waitress to leave. “Are you trying to get me drunk?” She whispered accusingly. “Sure, just like our prom night.” “It didn’t work then, either.” I was going to say that we were just kids then, but decided against it. “How long have you and Rob been together?” “You mean Rob whose name you couldn’t remember?” “I was just being a jerk.” I shrugged and grimaced appropriately. “Ten years.” “Exclusively.” She frowned at me with exasperation. “You think you’re so damn smart.” She was right; now I was being smug. “I’m sorry.” “Okay – seven years, ‘exclusively.’” But I was right. “You work together, right?” “Used to. Rob is making movies now: independent films.” “Producing?” “No, directing.” “Any luck?” “Not yet.” I could have said, “Oh, so he’s unemployed,” if I had wanted to risk ruining the evening. “Does he treat you all right?” I asked instead. “We’re compatible.” I asked her about the talent agency. We talked for a while about her job. “I specialize in kids,” she said wrapping it up, “and I enjoy it – the few nice kids, anyway. I get invited to their birthday parties sometimes. Sometimes I feel like family, watching out for them.” “But most of them are spoiled brats with pretentious parents?” “It goes with the territory.” Ironic, I thought. I so much wanted to know why she didn’t have any kids of her own – but that was too personal, for now. “So you’re a famous author now,” she said. “I am not famous. Occasionally one of my students will ask me to sign a paperback. And the only reason anyone has ever heard of the book is because of the movie.” “That’s not true.” “Yes it is. And trust me, the movie is better than the book, and the movie isn’t all that good.” She patted my hand on the table. “I loved your book.” “Thank you.” I suppose I wasn’t surprised that she had read it, so I didn’t pretend to be. “It is a very moral story,” she said trying, at least, to sound sincere. “A morality play about hookers, criminals, drugs, gambling, and deviant sex.” “I suppose, but some of the characters were very decent, and very brave.” She looked at me sympathetically. “I’ve got three ‘literary’ manuscripts sitting on a shelf. Much better stuff, really, but I could never get anyone to read it. So an agent at one of these writing conferences says to me, rather pointedly, ‘Jesus, Mark, you’re a criminal law professor at UNLV – write a goddamn Vegas crime story. I might read that!’ So I did, and he did. I still can’t get anyone to read my good stuff, though. ‘Write another crime thriller,’ they say.” “Maybe I could get someone to take a look at your good stuff.” She busted me. “Actually, they’re not ready yet,” I said like a man caught in a lie. “The good stuff never is,” she said knowingly. I ordered lamb for her, duck for me, and a bottle of Merlot. We shared our meals like a married couple, forking at will at the other’s plate (just like when we were kids). The conversation was pleasant and uneventful. Half the wine was left when Gwen took our dishes. She asked if we wanted dessert, and I said we wanted to talk. A floral scent in the breeze, gardenias maybe. The grape leaves rustled. All around us, steely blue skyscrapers lurched into the darkness. We were in the heart of the city, and yet it was quiet and green and the lights were soft. So we talked. “You know what always amazed me about you?” I started, feeling emboldened by the alcohol. “Hmm… my relentless and naïve devotion to virginity?” The glint in her eye – it was like she winked at me without winking. I coughed a laugh and had to cover my mouth. “Okay, that too,” I said catching my breath, “but I was thinking about how you used to talk to your mom after school, right after, you know, ‘homework time,’” I said raising my eyebrows. I used to sneak into her basement after school, and she would meet me there under the guise of needing a quiet place to do her homework. “You mean after having your tongue in my crotch and your dick in my mouth,” she said brightly and wryly. I had to cough again, this time in surprise. “Yes; that would be the more direct way of putting it.” “You could hear us?” “Yes, through the vent grates. That’s why we had to be so…” “Quiet, I know” she interrupted, “but I didn’t know you were listening.” “Sometimes I’d linger in the bathroom. I thought it was so funny I had to listen.” “What was so funny?” she asked warily. “Not ‘funny’ funny, but cute. You’re not mad at me?” “I don’t know.” “It was nothing, really – church picnics, piano lessons, volunteer work. I never had a life like that, and how you could switch gears like that…” “Oh, from being a slut?” “No. I didn’t mean that,” I said solemnly. “I know you didn’t.” She smiled. “I was just giving you a hard time.” “I meant it as a compliment; I thought it was great how you were this genuinely nice, sweet person, and yet you could seem to enjoy yourself like that, at least I think…” I was sinking now, hoping she’d throw me a line. “Oh, I enjoyed it.” “I learned a lot from you – a lot about being a decent human being.” “Thank you. I learned a lot from you too,” she said with a coy smile that reconnected us to the past. We sipped our wine and wondered what the other was thinking. “How’s your mom,” Addie finally said, more seriously now. “She’s great. She’s never had another breakdown. Must have gotten it out of her system. She’s got a condo in a high-rise near the loop, right across from the campus.” I paused to gauge my words. “I am sorry about that, by the way,” I sighed. “About what?” “For taking you to Mercy to see her that day.” She pursed her lips. “No. I am glad that you did that.” “I thought at the time that if she saw I had a girlfriend it might help her, but I shouldn’t have put you through that.” “Did it help her?” “No. It was all about her. My happiness wasn’t really weighing on her, obviously.” Her eyes were wet. “I felt so bad for you. I can’t imagine…. For you to have to see her so frail and …” “With her wrists in bandages like that.” And her eyes so dark and sunken, I might have added, but my mood was slipping, and I wasn’t going let my mom, my mom back then, do that to me. “Mark, we were together. I needed to be there. I learned a lot about you. I was so… proud of you. All alone like that, no family… I don’t know how you did it.” “Did what?” “How you took care of yourself so well, got to school every day, and you were still so friendly and smart. I wanted to feel pity for you, but I couldn’t – you were so damn strong, and it felt so good to be with you.” I had to swallow and concentrate to keep from welling up. “Shortly after that day,” she started with a smile, “my mom was going on about how you were a bad influence, and for the first time in my life I just unloaded on her.” Addie sighed like she was reveling in the memory. “I told her how I felt about you, and about who you really were, in here,” she put a clenched fist to her breast, “and then I called her a hypocrite and told her to go to hell.” “You did?” “Scared the hell out of her. Then she came to my room that night, and she asked me if all those things I told her about you were true, about your life and how well you did in school, and I said of course…” “You never told me this.” “… And that’s when she suggested I invite you to dinner.” “That turned out to be a mistake,” I said facetiously. The food had been so good, and it felt so good to be part of a family meal, that I implied, at least, that I would be happy to come to dinner anytime, and I think I made them feel obligated to offer. “We loved having you for dinner. Even my dad admitted, after the second or third time, that he liked you, and he meant it when he said you were always welcome at our table.” “If only he knew.” “Oh, I think they knew more than we gave them credit. And Joey,” she rolled her eyes (Joey was her little brother), “he wanted you to come every night, and when you weren’t there he pouted. He thought you were so ‘cool.’” “You know, one of the reasons I so much wanted to see you tonight was because I wanted to thank you those invitations. It meant a lot to me.” “I’m glad. It meant a lot to me too.” “It beat the hell eating spoonfuls of peanut butter and swilling cans of Old Milwaukee in that crappy little apartment.” “I know.” We were the only ones left on the patio, and I detected a slight chill in the air (finally). Addie was sleeveless. I looked inside, and there were still a few people at the bar. I saw a dimly lit booth we could hideaway in. “Let’s have a drink, inside?” I offered. She looked vaguely hesitant. “Something light – trust me.” She started to say something and I gently interrupted her. “I am ordering: remember?” “I’d love to.” We were seated in a darkly stained booth. It might as well have been lit by candlelight. The booth faced a window that looked down a long boulevard. Lights flickered and the skyscrapers seemed to be falling away from the street. I ordered a limoncello in a frosted flute for her and Campari with a twist for me. When our drinks came, I lifted my glass. “A toast?” I said without a clue as to what to say next. “To old friends?” she said holding up her glass with an exaggerated, comic wince. “No. To all the young lovers of the world…” I started, but trailed off not knowing how to finish. And then Addie finished my thought. “May they share an evening as lovely as this many years from now.” “Thank you,” I whispered as we touched our glasses. “I had worried that you really didn’t want to be here.” “Part of me didn’t, at first, but that was just the timid little girl part of me.” “You know, it was such a great coincidence. I was so glad you came to the reunion, and then we were talking about L.A., and I realized that I was going to be here in just a few weeks. When you agreed to meet me for dinner, well, I shouldn’t have said that thing about…” I stumbled over my words. “I shouldn’t have said how I wouldn’t tell my wife about our plans.” She didn’t say anything. I don’t know what I expected her to say. It was my topic. “I didn’t mean it the way it probably sounded, it’s just…” I was sinking again. “I did tell Rebecca I was going to have dinner with you.” She looked at me with no expression, like she was waiting for me to dig myself a deeper hole, so I continued. “I said it because through some strange coincidences, my wife has managed to meet every significant girlfriend I have ever had. Homecomings at NU, trips back to Chicago, our tenth reunion – my circle of friends isn’t too big, and it’s not a long list, mind you, but it’s still eerie. Anyway, we have a rule that we never talk about our past affairs…” “That’s a good rule.” “Yes. It is. So shortly after our tenth reunion, where you met my wife…” “I remember her. She’s very pretty.” “Thank you.” I was hurrying now to try and make my point. “So shortly thereafter your name came up, and out of the blue she says, ‘I sense there is some kind of unresolved sexual tension between you two.’” “She said that?” “Truth. So I said, ‘You probably think that about all my ex-girlfriends,’ but she assured me no, it was only with you.” “So you think there’s something to that?” “I was only trying to explain why I thought it was funny to say, ‘I better not tell my wife.’ I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.” “What idea?” “I’ll shut up now.” There was an awkward pause, and then Addie said, “She’s not only pretty, she’s smart. I’m sorry she couldn’t make the reunion. I hope she feels better.” “It’s hard.” I didn’t want to talk about that. I changed the subject and tried to lighten the mood. “So what did Dave or Rob or whatever his name is think about you having dinner with me tonight.” “I didn’t tell him.” We just looked at each other for a moment. “He’s out of town with his buddies on a ‘shoot.’” Addie made the quotation marks with her fingers. “I didn’t see the point.” “You think there’s more partying than shooting going on?” “I don’t know.” “Well, I wouldn’t worry, as long as his buddies aren’t gay…” Dammit! Her eyes pierced mine with a startled and icy glare – some of them were gay; how did I know and why did it matter? I don’t know what joke I was trying to make. She looked away with pursed lips. “I’m not worried.” I had to change the subject. “Want to see pictures of my kids.” She was appropriately impressed. She thought my son was the classic surfer-boy model. “I could get him into magazines tomorrow,” she said with believable earnestness. “Thank you, but I have a hard enough time trying to give him a ‘normal’ childhood out there in Sin City.” “I understand.” “Not that there is anything ‘abnormal’ about being a model,” I backpedaled. “No, it’s different.” “It’s hard, bringing up kids these days – Internet smut, global warming, terrorism…” “I can’t imagine.” We were quiet for a moment, and then she started to answer the question without me having to ask it. “Rob is not a ‘father’ kind of guy. And all those costs, the worries…” She trailed off and I waited for her to come back. She turned and looked me in the eye. “I can’t have children,” she said with obvious pain. I didn’t know what to say. She looked away and waived her hand like she was chasing a dark cloud away from our table. I dared to lighten the mood at the risk of ruining it. “You mean all that consternation, and there was never a chance of you winding up in a family way?” She smiled, and I closed my eyes in a moment of thanks. “Seems like such a wasted effort, doesn’t it,” she said, her good humor apparently restored. “You know how you said it felt good to be around me?” I seemed to have captured her attention. “Well, I felt good around you too.” She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward, as if to say, “Go on,” so I continued. “I was always trying to figure out who I was in high school. I wasn’t a jock. I might have hung around with the greasers, but hell, I was on the debate team. I was playing up that ‘bad boy’ image when I started going out with you, but that wasn’t me.” “I know.” “I always felt like I could be myself around you. I didn’t need a definition because you didn’t have one, and you didn’t attribute one to me. We just were.” “Yes we were.” “I wish I had respected you more... I mean your… as you put it, your ‘devotion to virginity.’” “It’s okay.” She sighed deeply. “It was quite a challenge.” “I’m sorry.” “Stop. I loved it. Trust me.” “I was barely ‘not’ a virgin myself, you know.” “I suppose I knew.” “I had no idea what I was doing. And then that one time in college, when you invited me out…” “To test out my new diaphragm.” I laughed again at her unabashed bluntness. “Oh, so that’s all it was. I don’t feel so bad now. At least after that, you knew I wasn’t nearly the stud I tried to portray.” We both laughed. It seemed so horrific to me at the time, but not now. I reached and took her hand over the table. She looked at me and pouted playfully. “You were the first man I ever slept with,” she said almost dreamily. “That morning, you were lying there, naked – I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.” Be gracious, I said to myself. I wasn’t good with compliments. “Thank you,” I said. “That’s about the nicest compliment I have ever received.” “I was hoping you’d call me.” “After that?” She looked at me like I was being stupid. “Yes.” “I felt… stupid.” She closed her eyes. “I should have.” I wasn’t being wholly honest with her. “I think the reason why I couldn’t make love to you that night…” – how was I going to say this? “Something was going to change, Addie, something big, and I wasn’t man enough… I wasn’t ready for it. I was scared to death of it.” I squeezed her hand. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I fucked up – twice.” Life Next Ch. 01 I saw a tear in her eye, and one welled in mine. “I’m sorry, Addie. I am sorry for anything I have ever done to hurt you.” “You broke my heart.” We weren’t crying, but there were tears. When I started the sentence, it was going to be in the past tense, but the word must have a will of its own. “I love you.” We were quiet for a long time. Gwen brought our bill. We held hands. I looked around the lounge and realized that we were the last ones in the restaurant. The staff was congregating around the end of the bar, waiting for us to leave. I saw in Addie’s eyes that she was ready to go. I reached for my credit card. “So all this time,” Addie started, deadpan, “and I thought you were telling the truth when you said I had exhausted and drained you with my oral prowess.” I just started laughing. I remembered why I loved her – still love her. Addie used the ladies’ room and I took the opportunity to apologize to the staff for keeping them till almost midnight on a weekday. “It’s okay,” said Gwen. “You’re a very handsome couple,"she then offered. “Thank you,” I replied, and my heart clenched. Outside it was cool and quiet. I had never been in downtown L.A. on a weekday night. It was like a deserted, awe-inspiring stage set. I put my arm over her shoulders and we walked. When we got to her car we stopped and I turned to stand in front of her. “Can I ask you a favor?” I said taking hold of her hands. She nodded yes and batted her eyes. “I just know that if I could kiss you, I could feel young again.” She smiled. “Of course you can kiss me.” When our lips touched, there was no movement, just the agonizing, delicate softness. For a brief moment we experienced the dizzying sensation of being alone together, detached from all other existence. Then we hugged, and my face was buried in her hair, and it smelled so familiar – like home. “One of these lifetimes,” I whispered just loud enough so that I am certain that she heard me. We kissed again, even lighter, just briefly, and as our lips parted she said, “You’re still a good kisser.” “No,” I corrected her. “We are a good kiss.” We both sighed and closed our eyes. We said goodbye awkwardly. I held up my hand as she drove away, ostensibly to waive goodbye, but it felt like I was reaching for her. “Life next, please,” I said aloud to an uncaring city and a dark, empty sky. ***** The working title to the story was “Life Now,” and I was planning a tender, erotic finish, but Addie and Mark wouldn’t cooperate. So I give up; it’s their story now. Please look for “Life Now (Life Next, Part Two)” If it is not up, it will be soon. Life Next Ch. 02 Life Next Ch. 02: Life Now Author’s Note: Mark and Addie, the characters, wouldn’t let me end “Life Next Ch. 01” the way I intended. It was supposed to be one story, “Life Now.” But sometimes your characters have a different story to tell. So here is their story, a second and final chapter (and, btw, it contains the erotic elements I originally intended for the first). ***** “My wife died.” That was all I could type. I had been hovering over the keyboard, my eyes transfixed by the computer screen, for over an hour. It was seven days after Rebecca’s funeral, and I was in the study. It was late. The kids were asleep. Bo, our hound dog, was curled up in the big armchair looking at me with puzzled but empathetic eyes. He was no help. The destination email address was Addie’s. I didn’t know what else to say. “I thought you should know,” I typed. Love Mark? No. Just “Mark.” “PS: I am okay,” I added so as not to alarm her. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, the cursor hovering over the Send button. It had been over two years since I had dined with Addie under the trellis of grapevines in the heart of the City of Angels. I hadn’t talked to her since that night. I thought that seeing her might have been a mistake. At our twenty-fifth high school reunion, I had talked Addie for a long time. At the end of the evening, she came over to say goodbye. Rob, her indie film director boyfriend, was waiting for her by the door on the other side of the room. She had already turned to leave when the thought hit me like a piano falling from the sky: “Ask her to dinner, idiot.” I had a one-time-only overnight in L.A. in just two weeks. I had never been to L.A. on business before (or ever since). Addie lived in L.A. The dinner invitation caught me so unawares that I asked without assessing its propriety. “That would be nice,” she said hesitantly. Addie had been my date to the senior prom. We were eighteen and wildly in love. And then I broke up with her, for reasons I had never fully explored – until that dinner. And now when I thought of her, my heart ached. I felt she had to know about Rebecca’s death. Why? Because she was a friend now? I didn’t try to understand it. I had found her yellowing business card buried deep in my wallet. I couldn’t fathom calling her with this news. There was an email address. It seemed perfectly impersonal: just a quick update. I stopped thinking, hit Send, and went to bed. The following morning I got this reply: “I am so sorry. Be strong for your children. (I know you will.) Love, Addie.” I was overdue for a sabbatical from the University. I decided to take a year off without pay. That way, I wouldn’t have to turn in monthly reports or pretend to be researching arcane legal issues. The dean all but required me to see a grief counselor before agreeing to the sabbatical. The grief counselor was a pretty but anal-retentive young woman who suggested that I should build structure and routine into my life. She didn’t want me sitting around the house all day drinking and feeling sorry for myself. That was ridiculous, I told her; in addition to being a law professor, I was a published novelist. I had a manuscript to work on – the next Fairly Good American Novel as I called it – and I assured her I would be extremely busy. So she gave my sabbatical her blessing, and then, of course, I commenced sitting around the house all day drinking and feeling sorry for myself. I put a good face on it for the kids. I would make sure I was tapping away at the keyboard furiously as they started out the door each the morning. “I’m on a roll,” I would call out, or give them some other encouraging words. As soon as the door was shut, I would close the word processing program, open the New York Times web page, and pour some Tia Maria in my coffee. By noon I’d be too inebriated to do anything but lie on the couch and watch old movies. I’d sleep off the first drunk and be reasonably sober by the time the kids got home. We’d have dinner and talk about their respective days. And then I’d start drinking again. Finally, after two months of this, my fourteen-year-old daughter Rachel told me she thought I should join a health club. “Maybe you could meet some people or something, get out of the house.” The look of worry and pity in her eyes snapped me out of my emotional malaise. She was right. I was pathetic. When we had moved to Las Vegas, I had relied on Rebecca to make all of our social connections. I didn’t necessarily care for any of my pretentious colleagues, so the only social acquaintances I had were Rebecca’s friends. They had been very kind in bringing me fruit baskets and hot meals in the weeks after her death, and there were a few polite social offers, but I always declined. The only true friends I had lived back in Chicago. I would talk to them on the phone occasionally, and we shared emails regularly, but it wasn’t the same as live adult companionship. I had turned into a lonely and forlorn homebound drunk. I decided for the sake of my kids to make a change. I started working out every day from nine in the morning until noon. Then I would eat a healthy lunch at the Wild Oats market, and go home and write, sober (it is the only way), until dinnertime. Every weekend I would take the kids on at least one excursion of their choosing, usually Water Land or the movies. After several months of this, I was in much better condition, both physically and emotionally – but I was still lonely. And then I started a peculiar habit. I would open up the email from Addie and stare at it. I did it once, and then again a few days later, and then it became an almost daily routine. It said “Love,” but why didn’t it say, “If you ever need someone to talk to, call me”? Because she didn’t want me to call her was always my conclusion. Hadn’t I caused her enough grief for one lifetime? But I wanted to call her. For the first six months after her death, I could visualize Rebecca. I could imagine her walking through the door with a bag of groceries in her arms, or see her sitting on the patio sipping coffee in her pajamas. And she was pain free, disease free – a miracle. But when I tried to hear her voice, I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but it was only the visuals, and they faded with time. Now, when I closed my eyes, it was Addie’s voice I was trying to hear. Rachel and Jeffrey, my eleven-year-old son, had spring break coming up, and they were bugging me to do something fun. We were sitting around the kitchen table and I was challenging them for ideas. Jeff was angling for Mexico, where we had once swam with dolphins. I wanted to take them on a special trip over the summer, maybe Sicily or southern France, and I thought Mexico was a bit extravagant. “Try something closer to home,” I suggested. “Maybe the Grand Canyon again?” “How about Disneyland,” said Rachel. I swallowed hard. “Disneyland? It’s still ‘cool’?” Jeffrey clapped his hands like he was bringing me out of a trance (a born comedian). “Yeah dad! Like WAY cool.” And then the two of them looked at each other with wide eyes and said, almost in unison and with mock horror, “The Tower of Terror!” “C’mon dad, we haven’t been forever,” Rachel pleaded. She went on about how there were all new rides and every kid in school seemed to have been there recently. I hadn’t expected this. I hadn’t even thought to offer it as a possibility. “I’ll see,” I said. A week before the trip, I found myself thumbing Addie’s business card. I dialed her work number, but I hung up on the first ring. She doesn’t want hear from me, I concluded. But I couldn’t let the thought go. Finally, I opened her email again, hit Reply. “Hi. Are you there?” I typed. I had my finger on the Send button for an interminable ten minutes. Finally the click. I waited. I was being ridiculous. I was about to turn off the computer when a reply popped up. “Yes, I’m here. Call me at work.” It was starting again, a connection. “Call me,” it said. Thank God. I dialed. Was it this easy? “Are you okay?” was Addie’s first question. “I’m fine.” I had to say something. “How are you?” “No, no. How are YOU?” “Good. Really good, really.” I was babbling. “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be.” “I am glad we got together that night.” There was a pause. “It was good to see you.” “I’m uh… I’m taking the kids to Disneyland of all things.” “That’s great.” I felt like I was asking her out on a first date. I just want to see her is all, hear her friendly voice – that’s what I told myself. “I was wondering if you’d like to join us for an afternoon, meet my daughter and son.” Another pause. “When are you here?” I told her the dates, all weekdays (less crowds). Another pause. “I don’t know, Mark. It’s kind of sudden.” “I understand. I’m sorry…” I was going to say goodbye. No. I couldn’t do that. I had to save the moment. “I know what you’re thinking,” I said with as much cheer as I could muster. “You do?” she said nervously. “Yes. You’re thinking, ‘Disneyland? It’s just so not “cool.”’” I thought I detected a muffled cough of a laugh. “You should know that my son – and he is an authority in this regard – has assured me that Disneyland is not only still ‘cool,’ but, in his exact words, it’s ‘WAY cool.’” She laughed. I sighed in relief. “I might be able to get away on Thursday.” Addie was standing by the C in CALIFORNIA in the plaza between Disneyland and the California Adventure amusement park. She was looking toward the Disneyland entrance, so she didn’t see me approaching. Her blue jeans were faded and worn, her sneakers were classic chambray keds, and she was wearing a sleeveless yellow blouse with a navy sweater over her arm; except for the her white straw bowler hat, it was just the way she dressed in high school. The wind was lifting the long black curls off her back, and I wanted to come up behind her and put my hands on her freckled shoulders, but thought better of it. Instead I just admired her. “I like your hat,” I said softly, startling her. She turned and took off her wire sunglasses. “It’s so L.A. chic,” she said sarcastically. We hugged without kissing. “So where are the kids?” she asked, looking over my shoulder. “On their tenth drop on the ‘Tower of Terror.’ We’ll catch up with them in a little bit. Did you come from work?” “Went home sick at lunchtime.” “You certainly don’t look sick.” “Terrible headache.” She put the back of her hand to her head in mock trauma. It had occurred to me, too late, that I had not told her how great she looked when we had met for dinner those few years ago, and I had made a mental note not to allow that oversight this time. “Addie, I swear to God, you look as healthy and lovely as you did when we were teenagers – really fantastic.” “Thank you.” I think she blushed. “You look great. Have you been working out?” I wanted to pump my fist with pride; she’d noticed! Instead, I kept it low key. “So is that a routine L.A. greeting?” She laughed. “Yes, I suppose it is, but I truly meant it.” “Thank you for noticing. I have been trying to take better care of myself lately. Life was rolling on without me there for a while, so I’m catching up now.” It was so easy to be honest with her. “So you are doing okay, then?” “Yeah, good.” I am just horribly, horribly lonely, I could have added, but I didn’t think it was time to be that honest. “How are you doing?” “Good,” she said with a squeak in her voice that made me think it was a pregnant answer. “If we hurry, we can probably catch up with kids and take cuts.” “Oh, I wasn’t necessarily intent on doing any rides.” I took her ticket out of my shirt pocket and held it up. “Oh yes you are.” I took her hand and pulled her along. On the drive out in the car, I had told Rachel and Jeff that I would be meeting a woman who was an old friend from high school, and I wanted them to be particularly courteous. Rachel asked if she was an old girlfriend. “Just a friend,” I said. “What’s her name?” Rachel asked “Addie.” “Addison Litton?” “How in the hell…” I looked at Rachel in the rearview mirror and stared in disbelief. “Mom once showed me her picture in your yearbook. Mom said she was your favorite girlfriend.” “I never said that.” “Mom said that. She said just knew.” “I like your hat,” was the first thing Rachel said to Addie after shaking her hand. I looked at Addie and shrugged. “Thank you. I love your earrings.” Addie had said just the right thing (not that this was a test). Rachel was the adolescent Imelda Marcos of earrings. She was wearing silver star-shaped dangles. “Thanks.” “Do you have a lot of earrings?” asked Addie using her powers of deduction. “I collect them.” “I’d love to see your collection someday.” Rachel looked at me suspiciously. I just shrugged. It was a wine bar in the middle of the amusement park, and Addie and I were seated on the patio at a table next to a column of leafy grapevines. “Must be something about grapevines,” I said tearing a whole leaf from the plant and smoothing it out on our table. Addie looked at me quizzically. “For luck,” I offered. The sun had gone down and the lights of the park sparkled around us. “This is surprisingly civilized,” Addie said putting on her sweater. “Trust me, it is the only civilized place in either park.” Addie looked at me and sighed feigning exhaustion, and I laughed. We had dropped in an elevator shaft, soared over California, ridden a roller coaster, and rafted the rapids. The kids were back at the roller coaster now, intent on riding it perpetually until the park closed. “You were very game,” I said. “I had fun.” “Except for the Grizzly River?” “I’m dry now,” she said patting her hair to make sure it was true. “The kids like you.” “Your kids are beautiful, Mark.” “Thank you.” Addie was wholesomely beautiful, with freckles on her cheeks, and her eyes were kind and generous. I felt like I could crawl into them (again, if she’d let me). “Rachel knows we were sweethearts in high school,” I said after taking her in for a moment. “She does?” “She asked all about you in the car on the way out.” “Are you sure she still likes me?” “She wanted to know why we were meeting.” “What did you tell her?” “Just that it was a chance to see you.” I debated completing the story. “Then Rachel said, ‘Are you going to marry her?’” “She did?” “Kids,” I replied shaking my head. “What do you do?” The patio was closing. We had finished our wine. We were just waiting for the kids to come get us. We had talked about a lot of things. I told her about my sabbatical and how I was thinking about taking the kids to Europe. “Something non-traditional,” I explained, “just go over there and live in one place, a small city, for a few weeks, maybe even a month.” “Sounds lovely, and great for the kids.” I made the mistake of asking about her job. Her talent agency had an ugly breakup, and she was stuck with what was left of it. She was struggling to make ends meet. “So how is What’s-His-Name?” I asked about Rob. “He moved out.” Apparently things weren’t going so well for Addie. “I’m sorry.” “No. It’s okay. Turns out he’s gay.” I swallowed hard and had to take a sip of water. She said this with absolutely no expression on her face, so I could tell she was mad as hell about it. “Oh my God, Addie. I am so sorry.” “It’s all right. He shared that with me shortly after the firm broke up, when he realized I wasn’t going to be able to support him anymore. But then I suppose YOU knew he was gay all along.” When we had met in L.A. a few years back, I had said that I didn’t think she should worry about Rob’s carousing with his buddies on film shoots, unfortunately adding, “…as long as they’re not gay.” I think I meant it as a joke, not an intuition, but Addie’s icy glare told me some or all of his ‘buddies’ were gay. “I didn’t mean… “ “Shh. I’m glad his gone.” Bastard, I wanted to add, but didn’t. We were quiet for some time. Finally I reached over the table and took her hand. “So here we are,” I said looking in her now timid fawn-like eyes. I wanted to hold her, or for her to hold me. The clomp of sneakers slapping against the pavement – my son was making an entrance. He raced over to our table, grabbed the edge, and panted with exaggeration, like he had just finished a race. “Hi dad! Hi Addie. You won’t believe…” he prattled on excitedly. I looked at Addie, raised an eyebrow. Addie had parked her car at our hotel at my suggestion, so we walked together. The kids were a good thirty yards ahead of us. Addie took my arm and leaned her cheek against my shoulder, and we strolled the otherwise artless Harbor Boulevard like royalty. “I’m glad I came out to see you and kids tonight,” Addie said. “Were you thinking about not coming?” “I was nervous and a little confused.” “Why?” “Now that I am here, I really don’t know.” I told the kids to let themselves into their rooms and walked Addie to her car. I knew I had to see her again. I couldn’t think beyond that. I leaned against the fender of her dinged up little Honda Civic. She stood in front of me and rocked back and forth absentmindedly, endearingly, like a schoolgirl. I took her hands in mine. “I um… I … well…” Apparently I was speechless. “Yes,” she said nodding with willing eyes, so I kissed her. It wasn’t like before. Our mouths opened instantly and our tongues darted along our teeth. I pulled her against me tightly and she wrapped her arms around my neck. In the scent of her hair, her skin, her faint perfume, I could taste her – Addison Litton, the girl I once loved, the girl whose heart I had broken so many years before. Tears welled in my eyes as we kissed. Her she was, her breasts pressed against my chest, my arms clinging to her waist, our loins so close and warm, and all I could think was finally, finally, finally… Our lips parted and we both gasped for air. She leaned back to look at me, and I didn’t want her to see my wet eyes, and then I saw hers. A tear descended, and I kissed its path along her flush cheek and tasted her again. We kissed again, like once before, soft, no movement, just are lips connecting our hearts. “I love you Addie Litton,” I whispered into her lips. I held her face in my hands and looked in her eyes. “I don’t want you to go home tonight.” She seemed sad. “You want me to stay with you tonight?” “No.” I had been feeling it all night, the truth of it, the inescapable necessity of it. “I want you to stay with me from now on.” There. I’d said it. “What?” Her eyes flashed with panic. “I want us to be together, I want you to come home with me.” “You bastard,” she said, stunning me. She started to cry. “You can’t be serious.” “What?” Now my eyes flashed with panic. I put my hands on her shoulders. “You can’t keep doing this to me.” “What?” I said again stupidly. “We dated for six months in high school, and it’s been almost thirty goddamn years since you broke my heart. We’ve seen each other three times since, and each time you break my heart all over again. I can’t take this, Mark.” “I am not going to break your heart this time,” I said with conviction. “Dammit Mark, what are you doing? Asking me to come live with you? Your wife just died.” She started to sob. “You can’t be serious.” “I am.” My mind was statically charged, burning up in confusion and panic. I hadn’t planned this. It just came out of my mouth. But I knew the heavy truth of my words. She brought her tears and sobs under control. My head was bowed as I tried to look in her eyes, to see what she was feeling, what she was trying to say. Life Next Ch. 02 “How long were you and Rebecca together?” she asked, looking at me finally, calmly, seriously. “Twenty-one years.” “Twenty-one years, and now you think you can walk into my life, we can just pick up where we left off as kids?” “You think that’s wrong?” I was shaking and I felt sick to my stomach. She shook her head and looked down. “No. It’s that I don’t believe you, Mark.” I had no idea what to say. After a moment, she continued, looking at me with hurt eyes. “Jesus, Mark, I wondered why you wanted to see me, what you were going to say. I thought maybe you wanted me to sleep with you, a one-night thing. I thought that maybe I could do that, though lord knows it would hurt, but that maybe you were lonely and I could do that – we could do that. But I didn’t expect this. “I think you’re lonely, Mark,” she said, “and I don’t trust you right now”. I looked away and put my fingers on my furrowed brow. That hurt, and I was trying to focus. I knew that whatever I said next, it had to be from my heart. I looked back at her. “Look at me, Addie.” She did. “I don’t think things through, like you do,” I admitted. “I am way too impulsive, and I am sorry about that. But I am also a simple man with simple thoughts, and I KNOW this – I love you.” She swallowed. I could have said something about taking things slowly, meeting on occasional weekends, but it wasn’t what I felt. I decided to say it. “Yes, I want you to come home with us to Vegas. I want you to come live with Rachel and Jeffrey and me, starting tomorrow. I’ll pay your rent out here till we can move all your things; I’ll take care of everything.” I waited. Her eyes were closed. I had to say something “If you don’t love me, just so no.”” Looking at her, I believed I knew what she was thinking. She hadn’t rejected the idea outright. There were complications. “I want you to stay with me tonight, and then in the morning we’ll swing by your house and get your dog and some of your things…” “How did you know I have a dog?” I sighed and leaned forward and put my face close to hers. “Because you love dogs. Because of course you have a dog.” I put my hand over my heart. “This is ME you’re talking to.” She looked at me skeptically. “I’m not saying I am coming, but do you even have a place for a dog?” I smiled. I might have survived. I had a chance. “Addie, we have a huge, walled-in, back yard with citrus and palm trees and a big pool, and we have a friendly, loveable old hound dog named Bo.” “Cubby’s a lab mix. He’s very sweet.” “He’s more than welcome. Cubby will love Bo, and the pool.” She looked away in thought and I sensed her confusion and apprehension. “You’re right;” I said, “I am lonely. But I know what I want. I have no doubts.” She looked back at me and sighed and pursed her lips, like she didn’t know what to say, what to believe. “You still don’t trust me?” I sighed. “I’m a little overwhelmed. I…” I waited, but she couldn’t complete the thought. “I know you, and I know what is going on in your head – Addie, you think too much.” Her eyes went wide, and I thought I saw recognition, as if she might believe what I would say next. “I was too young. I hadn’t lived enough lifetimes. But I’m all grown up now. My childhood wounds have healed.” I started using my hands to emphasize my points. “And I believe we are right where we are supposed to be, Addie. Right here. Right now. You have to believe me. And you can trust me with your heart this time.” She wrapped herself around me and whispered in my ear. “I love you,” she said in a whimper. “But do you trust me?” “Yes.” “I’ll bet that asshole Rob didn’t even like Cubby,” I said with a sly smile. I had my arm around her as we walked into the hotel. “No he didn’t,” she said shaking her head and, no doubt, marveling at the breadth of my intuition. “Why did you ever let that bastard move in with you?” “Because I couldn’t have you.” I rented a room just down the hall from the kids. I asked the desk clerk to send up a hotel robe and a traveler’s pack with a toothbrush and the like. When we got up to the kids rooms, Jeff was bouncing on his bed in our room, and Rachel was watching TV in hers. I asked Rachel to come over. She sat on the edge of the bed. Jeff stopped bouncing. Addie was standing by the door with her hands clasped in front of her, looking a bit self-conscious, like she had an audience with the queen (which was almost true) and didn’t know the protocols. “We decided that it was too late for Addie to drive home,” I announced, “so she has a room here at the hotel, and I am going to help her get settled. I need to talk to Addie, too, so I want you guys in bed AND asleep when I get back.” “Roger that,” said Jeff, and he started bouncing on the bed again. I looked at Rachel, the only responsible member of the family now that Rebecca was gone. “Can I count on you, sweetie?” She gave me a cold, disapproving look, like she knew exactly what I was up to. I honestly didn’t care if she did. Rachel had been, for the past eight months, the only female in my life, and I am sure she felt Addie was a threat. But I hadn’t made love to a woman in almost two years, and I wanted to tell Rachel that her mother would understand, that it would be okay. And then I had an eerie premonition, like Rebecca was right behind Rachel, stroking her long golden hair, telling her everything would be all right. This all happened, the thoughts and the vision, in less than a second. “I’ll make sure he gets to sleep,” Rachel said begrudgingly. “Thank you.” I said. I wanted to whisper, “I owe you one sweetheart,” but refrained. I wrote down the room number. “But don’t bother us unless it is an emergency,” I said to Rachel. “Half an hour, then lights out, and Jeffrey?” “Yeah dad?” “No more bouncing on the bed.” He went spread eagle in the air, like he was doing the Lipton Iced Tea plunge, and fell flat on the bed. “Roger that,” he said again. “Good night you guys,” Addie said bravely, waggling her fingers goodbye. When we were walking down the hall, Addie said, “I think she’s on to us.” “I know she is,” I said. “She is watching us through a crack in the door right now,” I surmised, so I reached behind Addie and gave her bottom a firm squeeze. “Oh my,” she exclaimed. “She’s definitely on to us now.” The door to the room closed. A large terry robe was laid out on the king-sized bed. My heart was racing and my palms were clammy. I felt anchored in place. Addie turned to face me. “Big bed,” I said, trying to at least lighten my own mood. “Yes it is,” she said with that familiar flirt in her eye. I was walking towards her, to kiss her, to begin again what we had started as teens but never finished. She was right, I thought. It was presumptuous and selfish of me to think I could walk back into her life after a twenty-one-year relationship with a woman I loved so deeply. Did I expect Addie to replace Rebecca or fill the void she left? No, not at all; I was sure of that. Before we kissed, I would say what I felt. I took her in my arms. “I couldn’t go on knowing you were out there and not be with you.” “You did okay for a long time,” she said with affected good cheer, the bitterness leaking through. “Can you forgive me?” “I’m going to try,” she said. “I understand,” I said kissing her cheek. “Let’s start over, a new life. This is the world as it is given to us.” I paused dramatically. “What do we do next?” Addie shrugged and threw up her hands. “Take a shower?” she said with a shrug. I laughed and we kissed. I now knew she had given this part some thought. We had showered together many times when we were younger, just not in this order. “Before instead of after?” I asked. “I just thought it would be a way to get our clothes off without all the fuss.” Such a direct girl. So the first thing we did in our new life, our life now, was undress and hop in the shower. “She is shorter than I expected,” Rebecca had said of Addie after meeting her at our tenth reunion some seventeen years earlier. Rebecca was tall and slender. “Yeah, but she’s got great tits, doesn’t she?” I retorted with a broad smile and raised eyebrows. Rebecca’s breasts were beautiful, but compared to Addie? Let’s just say that would be like comparing a Ferrari to a Rolls Royce. “I suppose there big,” Rebecca said with her familiar and perfected you-are-so-juvenile stair. “No, they’re not just big. I mean they are really tremendous tits, I know from experience…” “All right, stop.” Rebecca shook her head and smiled, exasperated. “What? You started it with the catty short reference,” I finished. I was standing behind Addie in the shower exploring her frontally with soapy hands and I thought about that long ago exchange and laughed. “What?” Addie rightly inquired. “I have very fond memories of these,” I explained as I ran my grateful hands over her breasts. “I almost had breast reduction surgery once.” I froze. “Oh my God, why?” Addie turned around and put her arms around my neck. “Rob thought they made me look matronly.” “Goddamn, he really was fucking gay,” I said with indignation. Addie laughed out loud and then kissed me on the mouth excitedly. “Thank you,” she said. “For what?” “That is the first time that I’ve been able to laugh about that.” “About him?” “Yes,” she said with a smile. “And you’re safe, by the way. I’ve been to the doctor.” “So you think we’re really going to do it this time, finally?” The hot water was pelting us. The room was filling with steam like it was generated by my desire. “I’m thinking we could have a breakthrough.” Poor Addie was trying to dry off and I couldn’t keep from pawing at her. “Sorry, I’m kind of horny,” I apologized as I nuzzled her neck and ran my hands over her curvy hips. She looked so good to my eyes; I couldn’t wait. I started maneuvering her towards the bed. “My back is still wet.” “I don’t care.” We toppled on to the sheets. “This feels so right to me,” I breathed into her mouth as we kissed. “Me too,” she mumbled into mine. “We have all the time in the world, I know” I said as I pushed her gently on her back, “but I want to make love to you right away, before you change your mind.” “I won’t,” Addie said pulling my head down and kissing me. “I know,” I sad, not altogether certain of it, “ but somehow it seems urgent.” I was poised to enter her. “Besides,” I said, “I think we’ve logged enough foreplay-time.” She smiled. “I’ve been waiting a long time,” she said to encourage me. I closed my eyes; I could pretend we were young again, and this was finally our moment… After school, back when we were just eighteen (just kids, I now know), I would slip down into the Litton’s partially finished basement through the old root cellar door. Addie would meet me there under the ruse of needing a quiet place to do her homework. She’d lock the basement door, explaining she didn’t want her little brother Joey or her big, hairy mutt Bear coming down there to bug her while she was studying. There was a guest bedroom with a small bathroom off of it, and we used that bed to explore our budding intimacy. The first few times we would just lie on the bed, fully clothed, and pet and kiss. As things progressed from one encounter to the next, Addie went from hesitant to eager. We discovered, together, that Addie was fairly easily aroused, highly sensitive, and, ultimately, wildly orgasmic. We never made love, but that’s a little bit like saying we never went swimming just because we didn’t get our hair wet. Throughout almost any encounter, we could hear Addie’s mom, the very proper, church-going Mrs. Litton, padding around the kitchen above us. It was comic, in retrospect – us trying to keep the bed from making noise, me hurrying to hand her a pillow so she could bury her face in it (when that was necessary). It got to the point where I would undress before Addie had even arrived. Then she would rush in and we would grab each other and group our various naughty parts. In moments, Addie would have her shoes off and her pants and panties on the floor. She’d push me back on the bed, crawl up my torso, and smother me like she was in dire need of life-saving cunnilingual resuscitation. I didn’t know what I was doing, of course, but it didn’t take an anatomical scientist to figure out what she liked. I would wrap my arms around her from behind and grasp her ample breasts (unfortunately, her top would usually still be on – who had time for that?) and squeeze my elbows against her naked, undulating hips. I could tell by her breathing and the vibrations singing inside of her when it was time; then I would take a deep breath and hold it, stick out my wagging tongue, and make sure my nose was properly situated. Then I would and plunge myself full-facially into the task at hand. I had to be sure Addie had a pillow in hand before doing this. She could carry on for quite a while, doing something akin to yodeling into her pillow, leaving me to gasp for occasional breaths. Finally, I would detect a seismic disturbance inside of her, followed by a spastic shudder and a brief gush of vaginal juices, and then she would shiver and bolt off of me, as if the slightest additional ministration would have caused her to explode. I had a mustache back then, and it would be drippy wet, and on occasion, even my sideburns would be affected. My face would be so damp that I would have to clean up in the little bathroom just a step away. The first time this happened, Addie was aghast. “Excuse me,” I whispered, crawling over her spent and naked-from-the-waist-down body. “Are you okay?” She leaned up on her elbow. “I’m fine,” I assured her, “I’m just going to um…” I pointed at my mustache, “dry off a bit.” “Was it that bad?” “It was fine.” “Oh my God, I am so embarrassed.” “Don’t be,” I said, splashing water on my face. And then I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. Addie fell back on the bed and covered her face with her hands. I hurriedly dried my face and jumped on the bed next to her. “Don’t be embarrassed. I loved it. It’s great.” She resisted when I tried to pull her hands from her face, so I kissed her hands. When her hands finally parted, I looked into her pleading, gold-flecked eyes. “Addie, that was fantastic, that’s why I am laughing. That was more fun than two human beings should be allowed to have.” “Really?” Her eyes tightened and her forehead furrowed and she looked so sweet and fragile. “Yes, I mean it… wasn’t it?” She thought about it, and then her eyes went wide and a devilish grin crossed her face. Once Addie’s ravishing carnality was temporarily sated (and I was dry), I’d take off her top and worship her tender, bodacious bosom. My favorite way to do this was to lie on my back and have her straddle my stomach and dangle her breasts above my face. I’d suckle her taught nipples and run my tongue around her large, dimpled areolas. Sometimes, down below, I’d push my aching member a little too close to the destination it craved. “Ah ah,” she’d have to say. I don’t know why I made her fight me like that. (We played it like a game, and we were good-natured about it, but in time it would take it’s toll on me.) To finish our afternoon encounters (“homework time” as we then facetiously – and now I think somewhat ironically – referred to it), Addie would attend to my needs. She was fascinated by my appendage, and I couldn’t have been any happier for it. I showed her some hand techniques but I couldn’t tell her what to do with her mouth. “We’ll just have to try all kinds of things,” she said with a Cheshire Cat grin one afternoon, much to my delight. So I would lie with my hands behind my head and close my eyes and enjoy, occasionally offering words of encouragement if something felt particularly good. The first time I ejaculated in her presence (the same day she’d first wet my face), Addie was lying on her stomach, perpendicular to me with her head on my thigh, and I was encouraging her to stroke me more vigorously. “Faster,” I managed to sputter. “Faster?” I heard through the fog of my condition. I suppose she thought she was working me fairly aggressively. “Yeah. It’s okay.” “Like that?” “I think I’m going to come.” “What?” It was too late to explain. “Oh my god!” she exclaimed, and then “oh no,” and I could feel her moving my spurting member around like she didn’t know which way to point it. By the time I was through there were little splashes of me on her shoulder, the sheets, my stomach, and even a few droplets in her hair. She was looking at me like she thought she might have injured me. I smiled at her. “Oops,” was all I could say. “I never imagined that,” she replied. I was still burbling below when she took her cum-drizzled hand away. She got up on her elbows, holding out her goopy hand like she didn’t know what to do with it. She surveyed my flagging, sticky member and the rest of the scene and offered this opinion: “This sex stuff can be kind of messy, can’t it?” I laughed, and that got her to smile. She looked at me with her flirty eyes and I could tell she had come full circle on this situation; she was suppressing a giggle. “I’ll try to give you more warning next time,” I offered, “assuming…” “I’ll just have to be better prepared,” she interrupted with assurance. And then we showered together in that little bathroom, as we would many times after that. (She told her mom she liked to shower before dinner – this gave her another excuse for locking the basement door.) Eventually Addie took to swallowing (that generous and adventuresome appetite I so admired). She said it was less messy that way. We didn’t fuck, and that seemed so fucking important to me back then; I had no fucking idea how good I had it. So there we were, a generation later, a whole lifetime away, and we were finally (finally, finally…) about to consummate our passion. There were no fears, no inhibitions, no inexperience, no parents – nothing in the world could keep us apart now. Nothing… There was a knock on the door. “Did you hear that?” Addie whispered. “Shh…. Maybe it will go away.” “Daddy, are you in there?” “Yes Rachel,” I called out. I didn’t move, and I held up my hand to indicate Addie shouldn’t either. “This better be good,” I whispered to Addie. “Sorry, but Jeffrey’s sick,” Rachel whined. “I’ll be right over,” I said sternly. I could hear Rachel padding away in her big slippers. “Whew. Now where were we?” I said to Addie, my still turgid and impatient organ straining against her moist flesh. “Mark? The boy’s sick.” “He’ll be fine for ten minutes, trust me…” “You can’t be serious.” “Oh… you so obviously don’t have kids.” Jeffery was spewing up wild candy colored flotsam in partially digested chocolate soup. It was an impressive effort. I got him cleaned up and situated in bed and I gave him one of my ginger ales from the cooler. I told him to take baby sips once every fifteen seconds to keep him busy. He didn’t have a fever, but I put a cool washcloth on his head anyway and told him he’d be fine. I stayed in the room until he started dosing off. I checked on Rachel. She was asleep. I checked my watch. It was two in the morning. I washed my hands and face and hurried back to Addie’s room. I opened Addie’s door as quietly as I could. She was in bed, and it didn’t look promising. “Is he okay?” she said sleepily. “Well he was kind of sick, but he’ll be fine.” I was unbuckling my pants, hoping for the best. “Too much candy,” I said slipping into bed behind her. Life Next Ch. 02 “I didn’t think you were coming back.” “I said I’d be right back.” “That was an hour ago.” “Let’s just cuddle awhile,” I started, trying to salvage the moment, “and if you fall asleep, that’s fine.” I put my arm over her hip and petted her tummy gently. “Okay, but I really was sound asleep.” “I understand,” I said snuggling up against her, my manhood swelling in the heat between us. “This is crazy,” she said. “What, us sleeping together?” I adjusted my hips and pressed against her. “No. That I am going to Vegas with you tomorrow.” There was a quiet pause, but I could tell Addie was realizing from the pressure on her bottom that there was no way we were going to sleep, not yet. All of a sudden the fortuity of being naked in bed with Addie at that precise moment overwhelmed me. It had started at our twenty-fifth reunion. That I was even there was a fluke. I wasn’t going to leave Rebecca in her condition. Then my best friend from high school surprised me by calling and saying he was going. I still wanted to beg out; it was Rebecca who had insisted. And now it had led to this. “You know how you convinced me?” Addie asked, breaking my spell. “My good looks?” “When you said I think too much.” “That’s all it took?” She turned over to face me, and we lay with our heads on the same pillow. She took my erection in her hand and squeezed it lovingly. “You said the same thing to me on the night you first asked me out, do you remember?” Uh oh, a test. I vaguely remembered we were sitting in my car. It started to come back to me. “Let’s see,” I started. I pretended like I was deep in thought while my hand found her curly pubic hair. “We were at Annie Harlow’s party and your girlfriend Pam was making out with my buddy Glen, so she wanted to stay and you wanted to go home.” “That’s right.” “So I offered you a ride, and we were sitting in my old Camaro in front of your house.” I found her clitoris with the tip of my finger. “I tried to kiss you and you wouldn’t let me.” Addie nodded, so I continued. The memories were flowing now, fueled by the stirring in my genitals. “Bob Seger’s ‘Night Moves’ was playing on the radio.” I could see us again, so young, in the pale yellow glow of the dashboard light. “I don’t remember that.” “I do, because I was thinking my night moves weren’t so hot. So I told you I was sorry for trying to kiss you.” “You were very polite,” she said giving me a few friendly tugs. It seemed so natural for us, talking and playing like this, even after all those years. “Go on,” she said, stroking me with a lazy rhythm now. “I asked you out.” “What you said, exactly, was, ‘Would you go on a date with me?’ and then you just waited for my answer…” I knew where she was headed and I laughed. “And then you started pestering me with a bunch of damn questions like ‘When?’ and ‘What would we do?’” “And do you remember what you said?” She squeezed my erection firmly and waited for my answer. “I said, ‘Addie, you think too much.’” Addie sighed and eased her grip. “I have heard you say that a million times in my head. It has been like a mantra for me….” “That’s just you thinking too much again.” My hand pressed on further between her legs, wetting my fingers. “I know, and when you said that tonight, I knew I was going with you.” “You did?” “I went on that date with you, didn’t I?” I crawled on top of Addie effortlessly, and she leaned back with parted legs, offering herself to me. “Do you know how lucky I feel right now?” I said, delaying the moment. “Here I am in bed with this beautiful, sexy, intelligent …” “Middle-aged, marginally employed…” she interrupted. “Shh…” I shook my head. “We are about to embark on a grand adventure. That’s not crazy at all.” “I almost didn’t come tonight,” she whispered. “Why?” “Because I think too much,” she managed with a cry and a laugh at the same time. She put her hands on the sides of my face and looked in my eyes like she wasn’t going to let me look away. She was drawing me into her. “No more thinking,” I said as I entered her for the first time, gently, slipping into her like we’d been doing this for decades. Then the two of us disappeared in our love, like two pats of butter melting into a warm fluffy pancake. We started slowly at first, like we were getting to know each other, a polite-conversation-about-the-weather kind of lovemaking. And then we caught a mystical rhythm, and the Addie I remembered from those afternoons so many years ago appeared. She wrapped her arms around me and muffled her cries in my neck. The bed was rocking against the wall. I could sense her condition. I knew she was willing herself to an orgasm. Not an unabashed, howling-at-the-moon sort of thing – it was more controlled than that, but I knew her, and I knew it wasn’t any less intense. I could feel her closing in, and I tried to catch up to her. I wondered if we could do it. I was close. And then it happened. A dull thudding on the wall, and the muffled words: “It’s three o’clock in the goddamn morning.” We froze. “When we get back to Vegas,” I whispered to her, “the first thing I’m am going to do is send the kids to a movie.” After we finished more quietly, we were cuddling and I made this assessment: “Well, we didn’t pull off the simultaneous orgasm thing,” I said, “but we did literally wake up the neighbors. I’d say that was a worthy first effort.” Addie was prepping for bed at the bathroom sink in her big terry robe. I had pulled on my pants and put on a shirt to go check on Jeffrey again. I came up behind her, slipped my arms around her waist, and rested my chin on her shoulder. She set down whatever she was doing and looked at me in the mirror. “I’ve decided on the south of France,” I began, “a little town in the Alps.” “You have?” “Yeah. It was a toss up between there and Sicily. I was leaning toward Sicily…” Addie was looking at me quizzically. “…but now that you’re coming with us,” I slipped my hands under her robe. Her expression changed, and I could tell it wasn’t because of my roaming hands. “I am definitely thinking the Alps.” “I can’t afford a trip like that,” she said with a strange look. I turned her around to face me and her robe fell open. “I wasn’t thinking you’d ‘tag along.’ I want you to come as a part of our family.” Perhaps I was being presumptuous. “Assuming, of course, you’d have an interest in coming with us…” She smiled and pursed her lips. “I might be persuaded.” “And Addie, please don’t do that again.” “I’m sorry. Thank you… this is new to me.” “Me too.” I pulled her against me and we kissed “So why are you favoring the Alps now?” Addie asked. “I don’t know. It’s more romantic. That’s why I was favoring Sicily, actually; before tonight, romance was a negative. And there are other reasons. You’ll find out.” I already had the spot in mind. The boy was fine, lost in that stage of sleep so intense that only young boys can reach it. I was standing over a curled up and sleeping Rachel, and I was compelled to pet her hair, hair exactly like her mother’s, long and golden, feather-light. She stirred. “Hi daddy,” “I’m sorry sweetie. Go back to sleep.” “Daddy?” she said as I was about to turn to go. “Yes.” “Is she coming with us?” I was stunned. I sat down on her bed. How could she know? Of course she knew. She had known before I did. “I think so. I hope so. Please don’t let that worry you.” I petted her head again. “Do you love her?” “Yes, I do.” Rachel looked at me like she was considering her reaction. “I love your mom, too – very much. But it’s different, Rachel. Every human relationship is different.” “It’s okay dad. I understand.” She closed her eyes. “I love you Rachel.” “Are you still awake?” I asked. Addie was facing me in bed and she opened her eyes. “A little bit.” I felt like I needed to explain something. I couldn’t fall asleep without doing it. “Remember how I told you I used to linger in the basement after we made love and listen to you and your mom talk.” I decided to call it making love now because in retrospect, that is what it was. “Yeah.” “I told you how great it was, the way you’d talk about piano lessons, or a some costume you needed for a school play, stuff like that.” “Yeah.” “It really wasn’t that great. I mean, I thought you were great, but sometimes…” this was harder for me than I thought. I just wanted her to know. “Sometimes I’d cry.” A scared look of concern jumped in her eyes. “What do you mean?” I remembered it vividly, hauntingly. “One time you were talking about a family picnic, about what relatives would be there and this chocolate cake you were going to bake…” I was having trouble. “What’s wrong Mark?” I swallowed. “And I knew I didn’t deserve you…” “That’s crazy, Mark.” “I know that now. I just wanted you to understand; that’s how I felt then. I felt like I wasn’t from your world. We didn’t talk about picnics and cakes in my world. I was too busy ducking liquor bottles or walking on egg shells around my suicidal mother...” “Oh God, Mark, I know…” she whispered sympathetically. “No, I’m not feeling sorry for myself.” I kissed her because I could. “It’s that I didn’t think I was a good person. A good person wouldn’t have kept pushing you to do something against your wishes. To my credit, I knew, in some weird, unhealthy way, that I was only trying to fuck you because I thought it would bring you down to my level, make you something less than you were.” “You don’t have to do this.” “No, I do. I didn’t break up with you because you wanted to stay a virgin; I broke up with you because I couldn’t respect that, and I knew you were going to give in. And I knew that I was too fucked in the head to handle that.” My chest hurt. I lost track of the point I had intended to make. I was searching to find it. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “No it’s not okay.” It came to me. “One way or another, Addie, I was bound to break your heart. I just want you to know that I loved you as much as you loved me. It broke my heart too.” That was the best I could do. “Can you ever forgive me,” I added. I waited. “I forgive you,” she said softly. We were quiet for a while. Addie appeared like she had something to say, but was afraid to say it. “What?” I prodded. “To this day, I have never experienced anything like what I did with you. Just thinking about you would make me shudder and touch myself.” She was smiling now so broadly that it made me smile. “I was serious about wanting to keep my virginity, however naively,” she sighed with exasperation, “but honest to God, Mark, a part of me was scared that if I let you make love to me,” she screwed up her face with comic fear, “I might die.” I started laughing. I had never been able to make a woman enjoy herself as much or as consistently as Addie did. There were times with Rebecca, but it took years of practice. “It wasn’t me;” I said, “it was you.” “No – it was us!” Addie said with emphasis. I smiled. Maybe she was right. “Well, it looks like you survived,” I offered. “I don’t know, Mark;” she said with sly, witty eyes, “what if that guy hadn’t pounded on the wall?” I was behind her and we were cuddling – spooning – when we drifted off to sleep, and at some point that night, I believe I woke up to discover something remarkable. I couldn’t recall the slightest effort, but I was inside of Addie, like our genitals had mystically gravitated towards each other in our sleep. I adjusted my position to push myself further into her, and Addie purred dreamily, like she was enjoying the sensation, but faintly, like she was also still asleep. I slowly withdrew, and heard a tiny whimper. I pressed back in, and she purred again, as if she where saying, “There, like that.” So I didn’t move. I don’t know how long it lasted, but I experienced a startling sensation of connection. I remember our hearts pulsing, the heat of our genitals so intense. I also remember muffled, quiet little snores, and I honestly don’t know if they were Addie’s or mine. At least I think that happened. I pulled myself from bed early to check on the kids, so I didn’t get a chance to ask Addie in the morning, when the memory (or the dream?) would have been fresh in our minds. I thought of that experience later and asked Addie if she had any recollection of what I was talking about. “No, I don’t think so,” she said like it was a curious question. “I do remember waking up feeling wonderful. It was amazing really. My life is in utter upheaval, I had no idea what I am doing, and I was as relaxed and content as I can ever been.” “Me too.” We leased a chalet with a converted carriage house in the French Alps. It was on the road from Allos to Barcelonette in the Haute Vallee du Verdon near the Parc National du Mercantour. Sheep grazed in our yard, large rolls of hay speckled the wild-flower meadows, and craggy mountain cliffs jetted up from a verdant tree line. When I told the French broker (in my broken French) that it was important that the master bedroom be as far away from the guestrooms as possible, he laughed. “Ah oui monsieur, por l’amour, no?” “Oui,” I had to admit. “Tres bien,” he said in that way only the French can make you feel naughty. I explained, with a smile, that it was like a honeymoon with kids. He said he understood and had the perfect place – and it was true. A moss rock fireplace dominated the main room of the house. The kitchen had an old wooden cook stove that had been retrofitted for gas. The bed in the master bedroom was huge and the four-post bed frame was so heavy that I believe the piece had to have been constructed in the room. The carriage house had two bedrooms and a loft, and it was spacious and perfect for the kids. Addie and I would often coax the kids out of the house in the afternoon by telling them we were taking a nap. As soon as they were safely away, Addie and I would rush to the bedroom, draw the curtains, race out of our clothes, and devour each other. “Homework time” had become “naptime.” “What if Addie and I got married?” It was early in the morning, and Rachel and I were sitting on the overstuffed leather sofa in front of the moss rock fireplace. “What a surprise,” was her pointed reply. “What?” “Really, dad: the way you two carry on, it’s like you’re a couple of high-schoolers.” “We’re that bad?” “Oh please. And the bawdy innuendos are SO annoying.” “You know what a ‘bawdy innuendo’ is?” I wasn’t sure if I knew. “‘It certainly is a sturdy bed,’” she said mocking me unflatteringly. “It’s gross.” I could tell she was only half serious in her disgust and I laughed – bright kid. “Are you through?” “I suppose.” “We’ll try to behave. I promise.” She shook her head disbelievingly and looked away as if to ignore me. I didn’t say anything for a while. Then I heard a muffled little sob. The weight of my question had finally settled in. “Rachel, I don’t miss your mother any less, and marrying Addie is not going fix the pain in my heart either.” There was no response. “Just tell me; do you like Addie?” She sat up straight and looked at me with fierce wet eyes. “That’s the problem – I like her a lot.” Rachel closed her eyes tight and a tear streaked her cheek. I didn’t know what to say. “It’s like I see how happy you are,” she said, struggling, “and how much fun we have, and then it’s like all of a sudden, I don’t know, it’s…” She trailed off, lost for words. “It’s wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” “Yes!” Rachel said emphatically. “I know,” I said truthfully. We hugged and Rachel struggled not to cry. “But it’s still beautiful,” I offered hopefully. “And your mom wants us to have fun, Rachel. She wants us to laugh.” I pushed her back so I could look in her eyes. “And mom would like Addie too.” She looked at me quizzically, and then all the sadness in Rachel’s body disappeared like a wind had blown through her. She let out a “Pfft” and laughed. “What?” I said stupidly. “Yeah, right!” she said sarcastically. I shook my head. “I meant in a figurative… or um… I didn’t mean if she were still…” I was flustered, and then I chuckled hopelessly. “Never mind.” “I know what you meant. It just didn’t come out right.” Rachel smiled and touched my hand. “I haven’t asked her yet. I wanted to talk to you first. Would you be okay with that?” Addie rolled her eyes. “What if I said no?” “I’d try to talk you out of it.” “What if I still said no?” I sighed and pleaded with her with my eyes. “Please don’t say no.” She paused like she knew she was torturing me. “Okay. I like Addie, dad, and I like that you are going to marry her.” “Thank you.” “Can I make a suggestion though?” “Absolutely, of course.” “Stop staring at her chest all the time,” she whispered. “You’re embarrassing yourself.” I hired an au pair to take the kids on an excursion one day, and Addie and I went exploring on our own. It was the Café la Mangeoire, a two-hundred-year-old converted sheep manger overlooking a limestone green mountain lake. I had seen the place in a magazine, but there was no name or address, just “A restaurant in the Haute Vallee du Verdon,” so it took a while to find it. We had lunch outside on the flagstone terrace by the lake – lamb and fennel cassoulet, a baguette with sweet cream butter, and a chilled bottle of pinot noir. After lunch, we sat lazily, finishing our wine. Then I took her hand and got down on one knee. She said yes of course. That’s not the amazing part. It was that terrace. It hadn’t been visible in the picture, so when I saw it my heart jumped; the walls, the columns, everything was covered in leafy grapevines.