Author: Mark Smith Title: Plunging into the Pool Summary: Mark and John hadn't seen each other since high school, but John's return after 24 years leads to an encounter unlike anything either of them had ever experienced. Keywords: MM Bi Cons Solo Voyeur Literary Plunging Into the Pool: An Old Friend is Worth the Wait Copyright (C) 2012 Mark Smith This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. All other rights reserved. This story is inspired by actual events, but names, dates, places and other details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. Any mention of businesses, celebrities or other trademarks does not imply any connection to this story; there is none. No other person mentioned in this story has contributed to or is aware of it; it represents only the author's views. Not all of the events described in this story actually occurred. Discuss this story anonymously on my website. All comments are welcome! www.plungingintothepool.blogspot.com Dedication My story is dedicated to the female reader. I love talking to women, sharing my thoughts with them, and hearing their stories. So I decided to write this description of my experience in full detail to give a little back for all the pleasures women have provided throughout my life. I hope there are at least a few female readers who will be intrigued by my story, and who will enjoy getting into my head to hear what I thought about it. I also hope they will enjoy the mystery of reading a story that unfolds slowly, trusting that the author will explain everything, eventually. This is not to say, of course, that men will not also enjoy reading this story. It's just that I did not write this story for them. Prologue My phone rang. "Hello, this is Mark," I answered. "Mark! I can't believe I tracked you down!" The voice at the other end of the line sounded surprised, and also vaguely familiar to me. "You did!" I said tentatively, but with some enthusiasm encouraged by the friendly tone of the voice. "You don't know who this is, do you?" "No ...," I answered. But now I was sure I knew who this person was. I just couldn't place the voice. I didn't mind the interruption; it was a quiet day at work, on a lazy August afternoon, and I couldn't help feeling a little curious. "It's me, John," he said. "John... John," I thought to myself furiously. I know and have known a lot of men named John. Which one was this? Fortunately, it seemed he was sympathetic to my predicament. "From high school," he volunteered. "Oh, John," I said, emphasizing his name, as if that actually meant anything. Then I paused. "Wow ... John. It's been a long time." My mind started racing. I hadn't spoken to him since high school. What had that been? Had it really been 24 years? "It sure has, man, it sure has..." His voice trailed off. "So what's up?" I said, trying to move the conversation along. "Just thought I would give you a call because I'm in your fair city." "Really? You're in Charlotte?" "Yeah, I work for General Dynamics now, and they've detailed me to work at the Armaments office out by the airport." "Is that right?" I kind of didn't know where to take this conversation. Although I'm usually a friendly person, and pride myself on an ability to talk to just about anyone, I don't really like small talk when I don't have a feel for its context or purpose. But in a way that I don't experience very often, John picked up the other end of the call, and after a few minutes I found myself listening to him talk in a way that's unusual for me. A lot of times, I take the lead in a conversation. Not because I'm pushy - at least, I don't think I am - but just because I usually have something to say on just about any topic. In fact, people tell me that they like to listen to me talk, make jokes and tell stories. So this first call with John was a little unusual, because the roles seemed reversed. That first conversation with John was unusual in another way. My recollection from high school was that he was somewhat laconic. But it seemed that he had matured into one of those people who can make a connection quickly, and who draws you into a dialogue in a way that can even be called conspiratorial. They can take the most mundane topic and make you feel like you're hearing the inside scoop. For instance, instead of boring me with details as you might expect in a phone call from a person you haven't heard seen years, John slid into telling me how these assignments to different work sites are actually sort of a boondoggle. He told me how, since he has more than 15 years' experience at the company, management at the site can't really tell him what to do, so he sets his own work schedule and spends most of his time socializing with the staff. "That's probably why they send people around to different sites anyway," he said. "Just so you get to know who's there. Plus, someone managed to convince 'em it would be hard to get people to go on-site, so they give you all sorts of perks to encourage you. Like here in Charlotte, someone saw how boring it was to stay out by the airport, so they really should put us up in the city. "In fact, I'm not far away from you right now, I think," he continued. "They have a few apartments in the TradeMark condo for people on assignment." When he said that, I instinctively turned around and craned my neck to look out the window of my high rise office toward the northwest, where I could catch a glimpse of the sun gleaming off the TradeMark. It was a tall, modern, glass and steel high rise that was typical of the buildings that shot up in Charlotte during the boom. It was probably only half full now. "Bet they got a good deal on those apartments," I thought to myself. "So it's great," John continued. "There's not much work to do, and I'm out early every evening to enjoy the nightlife of uptown Charlotte!" He attenuated the sarcasm at the end of that sentence just enough to avoid insulting my adopted city, and I chuckled with him. "So how long will you be here?" "Probably until just after Labor Day, give or take." "Well, we should get together while you're here. It's been quiet here at work. We've been slow for a while, you know." "Yeah." He paused, and I appreciated the sympathy in his voice. I think the downturn had been tough on everyone. Then his voice brightened. "Let's get a drink after work, maybe even dinner. What d'you suggest?" My mind puzzled for a minute. I couldn't remember when I had last thought about going out for dinner with a friend. For years, I've socialized with people from work, or clients, or old colleagues from past assignments. And I've travelled to other cities, New York especially, to visit friends. But I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone to dinner in Charlotte with an actual friend. So I just said the first thing that popped into my head. "I don't know. Seafood?" "Yeah, that sounds good. There's a McCormick & Schmick's just a few blocks from my apartment. How about there?" I knew the place. "On Tryon, right?" "That's right." I turned to my desk and clicked open my outlook calendar. "Tomorrow's sort of busy," I said. It wasn't, really, but I did have one meeting in the late afternoon and for some reason I didn't want this to be rushed. "How about Thursday?" "Fine with me," he said, "I haven't got any plans. Seven o'clock?" "Seven it is." "See you then." "Bye," we said, simultaneously, and hung up. I turned to look out the window again, resuming the daydream that John had interrupted. The clouds had made quite a bit of progress across the sky while we spoke. "That was interesting," I found myself thinking. * * * The rest of that afternoon, Tuesday, August 3, 2010, was quiet. I work for a financial consulting firm; most of our clients are the big banks in Charlotte, but we have others scattered all around the world. It's interesting work and I like it a lot. I've been there 16 years; ever since finishing grad school. I get to meet a lot of people, and learn about their jobs and their concerns, but I also get a fair amount of time to myself, and to write, which I really enjoy. Although my job is often hectic, August is usually quiet. I had taken vacation in July, and I was looking forward to enjoying the remaining weeks before Labor Day. Around 7 pm, I closed the door to my office and changed into shorts and a t-shirt. I like that even though I have a nice view of the city (I can never get enough of looking down to watch the people pass back and forth on the sidewalk below), no one looks directly into my office, so there's no need for me to ever close the blinds. I often change before leaving the office because, after all these years, I've realized that wearing even casual office clothes is completely impractical for a commute during the summer. But it was all the more necessary for me to change on that day because I had ridden my bike to work. Although I'm not a committed bike commuter, I enjoy it when the evening light lasts longer, and so long as I can reasonably predict when I'll be leaving work. It's only about six miles to my house out in the Providence Park neighborhood. So it was with a little spring in my step that I headed down to the garage, collected my bike, and headed out. I really enjoy biking, and always have. I don't try to go especially fast. I just get into a high gear and get into the rhythm of pumping my legs. For some reason, I find that really helps me think. I concentrate best when I'm biking, walking or running. And I like to think. My motto is from Socrates - "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think about all sorts of things. Why the world is the way it is. Why people act the way they do. Why I am the way I am. For me, those thoughts aren't worrisome or distressing. They're relaxing. That evening, as I pedaled along on my half-hour ride, I thought about John. I thought about our call and why he called. I also thought back to high school, and the path my life had taken since then. John was one of my best friends since grade school. We grew up together in the anonymous suburbs of a mid-sized, mid-western city that I'd prefer to leave unnamed. I was always one of the smarter kids in school and so was he. He and I, and a few other kids, enjoyed talking about things most of the other kids didn't. Movies and fun and games and things like that. He's part of my happy memories from growing up. But that changed during our years in high school - a large, 2000-student public school. John and I had started out very good friends. In fact, we were partners on the debate team (yes, we were each that much of a nerd!), but as the years went by, we drifted apart. A girl was involved - a girl who was admired by John and me equally. As I rode along, thinking back to the experience, I thought that the reason John and I drifted apart was simply because after knowing each other for so long, we had begun to chafe against each other. We each wanted to follow our own path, and the other had become a reminder of a childhood that was now more of a hindrance than the treasured memory it would become years later. By this time, I was more than halfway home. As I neared my neighborhood, the large towering trees I love so much became more numerous. They are why I had chosen to live here in particular. Despite all the problems they cause - dropping leaves in the fall and pollen in the spring and, what can be worse, throwing their limbs down on us and our power lines in summer thunderstorms and winter ice storms - I love trees! I also like my neighborhood, Providence Park. Even though the homes are smaller than the McMansions that some seem to prefer, and even though they, like the trees that surround them, cause their share of maintenance headaches, they have a quiet elegance. Sitting primly in their well-tended yards, looking pretty much the same as when they were built 50 or more years ago, they have an air of having seen it all, and remaining calm. They reassure me. Getting back to my thoughts, I was one of the few kids from my high school class to go to an ivy league-type university. My life changed completely there. Many of my new friends were from New York or elsewhere on the East Coast. I spent a junior year abroad in England. I became ever more sophisticated than anyone I had known in high school (or, at least, so I thought at the time), and I lost touch with all of them. After college, I continued along a trajectory that carried me even further from the high school experience that John and I had shared. The first thing I thought of doing after graduation, having majored in History and English, was to seek out a PhD in the hope of eventually becoming a university professor. But I knew I really wasn't, at heart, the academic type. Instead, I was intrigued by the corporate takeovers of the 1980s, and so I chose to study finance in graduate school. There I learned that I have an ability to analyze complex subjects and describe them in understandable terms. I finished grad school just as the 1990s boom was beginning, and easily found employment as a consultant, which would offer challenging work and handsome remuneration, as they say. But you can understand me, I think, by knowing that my other motto is also from Socrates - "everything in moderation, nothing in excess." I always try to find a balance. Just as I can have the same interest in finance as in history, without choosing one to the exclusion of the other, I didn't want to devote my life entirely to the world of big business. So instead of following my classmates to New York (or London, Los Angeles or another big city), I headed off to Charlotte to join a smaller firm. I've been lucky to see my career progress along with the growth of the firm and the city. I reached home and, after putting my bike in the garage, I stood for a while and looked out at the trees, listening to the music of the chirping cicadas, and thinking about my conversation with John. At first it had seemed like it was going to be a brief. Maybe all he wanted to do was say hello and let me know that he'd be in town. Just being polite. But we got to talking and the conversation went on and from the few things he mentioned about himself, I got the sense that his situation was similar to mine in many ways. He liked his job, but he knew it well enough that it wasn't as much of a challenge as it had been. He'd travelled, so he didn't have that restlessness about life that many younger people do. He was married with kids, so that aspect of his life had been sorted out, too. He was looking for something, I concluded. That was the last in my series of thoughts, as I stood there looking out at the trees - John was looking for something. In fact, it seemed that maybe he was looking for the same thing I was. See, that's why I enjoy biking. I always learn something. This time, I had learned that John and I were both looking for something. Now all I had to figure out was what we were looking for. * * * As I opened the door to my house, I was reminded that I would have to put my ruminations off until later. The best word to describe what greeted me would be "chaos," but it was a good kind of chaos. The kind of chaos that's the best reward for a long day's work. My wife and two children were in the midst of preparations for a two-week absence - they were leaving that weekend to visit her parents. I had met my wife in college, and we had been married 18 years. We were blessed with two children - a boy, age 12, and a girl, age 10. Needless to say, there was rarely a dull moment in our lives. In the midst of all this, I mentioned to my wife that I had heard from a high school friend out of the blue that day. For some reason I really can't explain, I remember trying to sound casual when I said it. But I don't think she even paid much attention, since she had her hands full with a million other things. I told her that I would have a drink with him later in the week, and it seemed she was relieved by this. As long as it didn't involve her having to pick up or drop off anything or anyone, it was fine with her. She probably wouldn't mind having me out of the way for an evening, anyway. As we got ready for bed in a quiet house that night, my wife remembered what I had said earlier, and did the best she could to show some polite curiosity. I told her who John was, and even though she had never met him, she seemed pleased that a friend of mine had called. As I drifted off to sleep, I mused to myself that what really pleased my wife was that a male friend of mine had called. This would be a good time to explain that while our marriage is a happy one, it suffers from the stresses and strains that can be expected after 18 years, and two children, together. And I am willing to admit that I bear my share of responsibility for the strains. Although I have been faithful to my wife, you should understand that my closest friends, ever since grade school, have always been female. As a boy, I never had trouble talking to girls, and I believe I have only perfected that skill since. This is not to say I'm a lothario, however - it's just that I really like women! I like everything about them; I'm not the kind of guy who limits himself to a "type." One time, my wife said in exasperation, "Your problem is that you'll always find the good qualities in a woman!" I could see what she meant, but I thought to myself, "That's hardly a fault, is it?" It is true, and I will freely admit, that I ignore a woman's faults and focus only on her good side. I always give a woman the benefit of the doubt. I don't know why this is, exactly. Part of it, I think, is simply because I believe women get the short end of the stick in lots of ways, and I feel I should make up for that. So you can imagine, that with an attitude like this, I don't have a problem making friends with women. And it's not rare that I will go a little bit further than friendship, while always remaining a gentleman (which, by the way, I've learned makes a man even more attractive!). That is, I'll also freely admit to being a bit of a flirt, and even more so as I've grown older and gained the confidence that comes from experience. The only reason I mention this now is to explain that I think my wife was happy that John had contacted me. Like I said, I don't really socialize with anyone other than work colleagues and the parents of our kids' friends, and I believe she loves me enough to feel sorry about that. She'll sometimes mention that I should find a guy friend to bike with, or to share the burdens of home maintenance with, or really, just to share some of the stresses of modern life with. She probably thought John could fill that role. The last thought I remember as I went to sleep, in fact, was wondering whether he could. * * * I woke up early the next morning, and had the feeling that the rising sun itself was feeding me energy. I'm not really a morning person, but sometimes on a quiet, cool summer morning like this, I have no problem being the first one in the family out of bed, making a pot of coffee, and just taking ten minutes to enjoy being alive. On this morning, as I sipped my coffee and looked out the window at the trees moving in a gentle breeze, I decided I'd ride my bike into the office again that day. A half hour later, I had changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and was pedaling toward the office. I've never had difficulty motivating myself to exercise; at least, not as an adult. As I child, I never exercised and never participated in any sports, and was quite the chubby kid because of it. But around junior year in high school, something changed for me For one thing, a friend of mine suggested that I try a low-key gym he went to, that had a full set of Nautilus equipment. I found that I loved it - maybe because it didn't require any coordination! I think another reason was the atmosphere at this gym. This was before the whole exercise phenomenon really took off, and this was a sleepy little gym with the weight room and a few racquetball courts. I wasn't intimidated, even though I was a complete beginner. I just had my little chart for the weight machine circuit, and as I gradually increased the resistance at each station, my muscle tone increased as well. At the same time, I got into biking. This was also before cities got into the swing of building bike trails, so I just rode around the neighborhood. When I had the time, I'd enjoy riding along the quiet roads near the river not far from my house. As I raced along those flat roads, trying to go as fast as I could, I focused on the feeling of the blood flowing to the muscles in my legs, hips and butt. I liked that feeling; I liked the feeling of my muscles burning as they pumped harder and harder. That's the real reason I like exercising. It's very sensual for me. On this morning, I was somehow motivated to ride just a little faster than usual. That pleasant burning feeling returned, and I soon found my thoughts returning to John. I thought back to when I had last seen him. It had been in the fall of 1986, when we were each in our freshman year of college. He had gone to a state school known for its engineering program, which was located in a rural area a few hours outside the city where we grew up and where I was in college. He had always been an engineering type - a quantitative, black and white kind of guy. Numbers. I was the liberal arts type, shades of gray. Words. Anyway, a few of my friends had gone to that school and I made a road trip down there to see them not long after college started. The whole thing was very awkward and uncomfortable - for the obvious reasons associated with seeing people from high school after you've made the transition to college - and I've pretty much put it out of my mind. At some point during the weekend, I do remember going to his dorm room to see him. We talked for less than five minutes. Just enough time to realize that we had nothing to say to each other. And that would be the last I would ever hear from him, or of him. To understand why the last time I saw him was so tense and awkward, and especially to understand why the prospect of meeting John again now was so significant for me, I have to back up and tell you about everything that happened between me and John in high school. Before I go back to the fall of 1985, let me acknowledge that I'm not completely comfortable with all my high school experiences - but who is? So be it; life is often a little messy. Backstory In high school, John and I were two of the guys who hung out in my friend Gary's basement and smoked dope. On weekends, we varied the scene by first smoking dope in Gary's basement and then going to one of the high school parties someone was always having. When we got to those parties we didn't mingle or pick up girls. We didn't know how. Instead, we lingered on the fringes and listened to music and giggled like stoners do. When we weren't smoking dope or going to parties (which used to be the case more often back in 9th or 10th grade but was becoming more rare as time went by) we did guy stuff, like playing Dungeons & Dragons or playing cards or doing crazy things in Gary's back yard. But we also flirted (badly) with Gary's sister, who was about 10 years older and, looking back on it, infinitely patient with us. And we also looked at "men's" magazines. "Gary's books," we called them - Playboy and Hustler and sleazier mags like Swank. But I wasn't your typical stoner. I was also a "brain" who got (nearly) straight A's all through high school. And as my high school years passed, I found myself becoming less interested in hanging out in Gary's basement and more interested in spending as much time as I could with the person who up to that time was the most fantastic wonderful person I had ever met in my entire life: a girl whose name is Emily. Now Emily is truly an amazing person. I spent hours talking with her on the phone and doing all sorts of activities with her (just not the "activities" that my fevered, teen-aged brain was most interested in). I was closer to her than to anyone else at the time. The important part of my backstory starts in the fall of our senior year, which was when Emily broke up with one of the most alpha males in the school (football team, valedictorian, etc.). To flatter myself, I'll tell you that he thought she did so because of me. Maybe she did, but after ending things with him, she didn't start anything with me. Instead she decided to have a fling with John. I'll save you the gory details of angst this caused for me. Suffice it to say that I was beside myself with jealousy. It was more than jealousy, actually, it was out and out anger. I was angry at her, but even more so at him. And I had plenty of opportunity to wallow in my jealousy and anger. Maybe she was trying to assuage my feelings, maybe she was just being honest, maybe she just liked talking about herself, but the fact was that Emily and I talked at length about why she was with John and not with me. And in these conversations she made clear to me that her attraction to him was purely physical. She told me how she really didn't like his personality, she told me about all the things he did that were immature and annoying. She told me how she just wanted a fling before leaving high school. Smart girl, I must admit, but still I was angry and jealous and resentful of her for having this fling with him, not me. I remember asking Emily numerous times why she went out with John and not me, and the answer that sticks in my mind is "I think he's just cute as a guy." I'd often heard girls talk about guys being "cute," and I was curious what they meant, exactly. Of course, I was really curious why they, and Emily in particular, didn't think that about me (that is, I assumed they didn't), and the things Emily told me about John gave me no hope that any girl would ever say I was cute. She liked his face. I remember her musing about his nose, which I thought was too prominent but she thought was "classic, in a Greek or Italian way." She would never say that about my nose, which was too pointy and upturned. She also liked his big, brown eyes. They were sort of almond-shaped - the kind that I thought made him look half asleep, but she thought were seductive. I knew that my eyes, by contrast, were too small and too close together. The one thing I would have to agree on with Emily was that John's most attractive feature was his hair. He had a wonderful head of brown, curly hair. Long. If he pulled it out straight it came down to the end of his nose. I've always liked long hair - on women especially, but on men too. Even so, there was not much else about John that I would have agreed on with Emily - at least, not at that time. For instance, I remember her talking about his long eyelashes. At this point, I decided not to ask her what she liked about him anymore, because if she was going to be judging guys based on silly things like eyelashes, I knew I would never have a chance! Another area where I couldn't compete with John was in terms of his body. Although I had gotten in pretty good shape, I was still somewhat scrawny. John, on the other hand, was on the swim team and he also swam in the rec leagues during the summer, so he had very round, well developed muscles. He wasn't "ripped." Instead, he had nicely curved pecs, wide, rounded shoulders and developed biceps. Overall, he was an inch or two taller than me and weighed maybe 10 pounds more. My body was slim and angular - he was one of those guys with "muscles on the outside," if you know what I mean. Rounded, developed muscles all over his body. Emily really liked his body. Especially his butt. Sure, I got this reaction too, when I was in high school. When I wore tight jeans - as was the fashion for guys and girls then (who's criticizing 80s fashion?!) - the girls who were my friends would playfully tease me and pinch my ass, but (pun intended!) with Emily and John it seemed to go to a whole other level. She would often find a reason to mention to me how much she liked John's butt. The tight jeans he wore put his rounded, muscular ass on display, and Emily often reminded me that she noticed! Overall, I got the impression that the reason she was going out with him was because of his looks and his body. So again, I soon realized that I didn't have much of a chance with her. None, really. Still, I remained very close friends with Emily, and although I knew that she really liked me on an intellectual, platonic level, I had to deal with the jealousy and frustration of her going out with John. God I wanted to be him. In every possible way, but especially because he had Emily. I put up with it because I could see that he truly was only a fling for her, and so long as I could continue to spend time with her as her best friend, I felt I had more than enough to keep me satisfied. As would inevitably be the case as graduation approached, everything started to intensify toward the end of the school year, and especially after we all turned 18 (Emily's birthday was in March, John's and mine were in April). The event that set the stage, as it were (it was probably in early May), was our annual debate team dinner. We all gathered at a restaurant and it was loads of fun. Emily (who was also on the debate team) and I came up with the idea of giving out gag awards. One of my happiest memories is of a few hours we spent on the phone, thinking up some award to give for each member of the team. We also thought up a few words to say about each of them. Then we planned that the person would come up and we would pin some sort of medal on them. I remember distinctly that we planned that she would pin the medals on the guys and I on the girls. It wasn't a sexual thing (or was it?), we just thought that's the way it would look right. Anyway, the time came for John to come up to the podium to get his award and for Emily to pin the medal on his chest. I didn't notice anything at the time, but I do remember a few days later we were talking about him (like I said, we talked a lot about him) and she remarked, again, on how developed his body is, and as a specific example she mentioned that when she went to pin the medal on his chest she could barely pull enough fabric away from his pecs to do so - his shirt was that tight! Ok, so that seems to be a somewhat mundane, if slightly flirty, remark, but it has always stuck with me. Mainly because of the way she told me, I guess. She got that kind of dreamy, far off expression girls can get when they talk about a guy. But also because of what I thought about the overall situation. We were at a debate club dinner; I mean, how lame and non-sexual is that? Granted, we were teenagers, but even at this event he had this effect on her! I guess I was just a little stunned at the seductive power he had over her. Soon after that dinner, there came a moment when I realized that something had changed, and for some incomprehensible reason, I had begun to look at John in a way that was different from how I had ever looked at any other guy. Maybe I had heard Emily talk so much about how "cute" John was, and how much she liked his body, that I started to see him through her eyes. Maybe it was just the effect of my raging hormones and my frustration at not being able to be with Emily physically, in the same way that we were close emotionally. Maybe (and maybe this is going a little too deep!) I was so intensely jealous of him that I somehow began to believe that he was superior to me and it was only right for me to acknowledge that fact. But for whatever reason there did occur this moment when I started to agree with Emily that John was a very attractive guy - and I especially agreed with her that he had a great body. The moment that I clearly remember first thinking along these lines was at a backyard barbecue party celebrating our impending graduation. h There were probably 50 kids there. Some were playing volleyball, including John. He took off his shirt, and I will never be able to wipe from my mind how stunned I was to see just how perfectly developed his body had become. I couldn't keep my eyes off him - his pecs, his six-pack abs, his slim hips - and most of all I noticed how tight his jeans were and how they revealed every curve of his absolutely perfect ass. His face, his hair. Just abso-fucking-lutely amazing. There wasn't a coherent thought in my brain - I just wanted him. On that hot summer afternoon I thought he was the sexiest, most desirable person I had ever known. I have to wonder now if anyone noticed me staring. I remember leaving the party soon after that so I could get home quickly. Once there, I went straight to my room and went at myself with more than the usual gusto. And John was all that I thought about. We still had a few days left at school, and I remember noticing more than once how good John's butt looked in the old and faded pair of jeans that were his favorite. And I also remember one time sitting in class and trying to sneak a peek at his crotch, to assess the size of his ... bulge. It was as if something had switched in my mind and I now permitted myself to look at him in a new way for the first time. But thinking back on all this, I wonder if that really was the case. That is, I wonder if I had been looking at him in that way before, but had just not yet admitted to myself that I did. At the time, whatever feelings I had for John didn't go any further. I wasn't really attracted to him in any meaningful sense of the word. I didn't have a "crush" on him; I didn't want to get to know him better, or be with him. And I have no specific memories from this time of his personality being attractive to me. Instead, I remember lots of mental images of his body. It was just pure physical lust - a desire to be with him in a physical way. Anyway, soon after graduation there was another event that added fuel to the fire of my intense feelings of both attraction toward, and jealousy of, John. My parents would be away for an evening, and with the discrete assistance of my older sister, I planned a party for all my friends (and whoever else might show up). Of course, John and Emily were invited, and I realized that they would be there together. I could have called the party off, I guess, but I went ahead with it. It turned out to be a fantastic party; the best I've ever thrown. It was as good as it could have been short of the cops being called, I should say, and I remember being amazed at how many "friends" I had never known. But in the midst of trying to keep my house together, I couldn't help but keep a close watch on John and Emily out of the corner of my eye, and I therefore noticed immediately when they disappeared into the living room, where the lights were low and a psychedelic Pink Floyd album was wafting from the stereo speakers. When I casually strolled through the room a few moments later, there they were, stretched out on the couch, their limbs entangled, their lips locked, blissfully unaware of my presence. Later that night, after everyone was gone and all evidence of the party was safely in the trash, I returned to the living room and looked at the couch. Alone in that darkened room, I realized that the intense jealousy I felt toward John - the anger that he, and not me, was with Emily - was masking another jealousy that was perhaps more intense. That was, of course, the jealousy I felt toward Emily - that it was she, and not me, who was with John. And as I stood there that evening, another thought started to creep into my mind, although I fiercely resisted it and didn't want to admit it to myself. It was this: since jealousy is, of course, the feeling that you want to be another person, did this mean that I wanted, in some way, to be Emily? As I continued gazing at the couch, I remembered how I had earlier seen Emily and John there together. Yet when I looked again this time, I saw myself there. And I saw that I hadn't taken John's place, but rather, I had replaced Emily. I could also hear Emily's descriptions of John running through my head, but this time my own voice had replaced hers. And as I lay on that couch with John, my body entangled with his, all of Emily's descriptions of John proved true - true beyond my wildest imagination. After that party, John and I did hang out a few more times in Gary's basement, but it felt weird. On what turned out to be the last evening my friends and I all spent there, I remember beginning to realize more and more how seriously horny I got when I smoked dope. And so I remember sitting there in a group of a half dozen guys, the heavy metal blaring, finding myself just staring at John, filled with an almost uncontrollable physical desire to get it on with him right there. The next day, my friend Joe told me that John had asked if I was mad at him (at John, that is). I was puzzled by this and I said, "No, why?" Joe just answered, matter-of-factly, that John had said it was because I was staring at him so intently the night before; I was looking right in his eyes like I was mad at him. I made a mental note not to stare. So while our time as a group at Gary's had come to an end, we were still all friends - just in a more individual way, as we each made our preparations for the upcoming transition in our lives. John and I still got together and talked often. I don't remember the details of what we talked about but I'm sure we were both excited, but also apprehensive, about going off to college. The long and the short of it was that although my feelings of attraction toward John were very intense, they also meandered a bit over those few weeks, and there's no specific cause I can point to or way I can really explain it. I think it was a combination of him being attractive in the first place, my horniness increased by the drugs and alcohol we consumed together, the quasi-sexual situations we were put into as teenagers, and the reactions that Emily had to him and shared with me. Unfortunately, I never resolved the feelings I felt towards John in a healthy way. Looking back on it now, I chalk it up to being only 18 and being emotionally undeveloped. I certainly didn't understand my feelings the way I do now. Of course I was unable, at that age, to handle the conflict between the physical attraction I felt toward him and the absence of any romantic feelings. Toss the intense jealousy I felt into the mix and it was bound to end up an awkward mess. * * * It's important to understand that up until this point, I had not made any overt expression of the attraction I felt towards John. I say "overt" because I have no idea what sort of subliminal cues I was giving out. Of course, there was that time he told Joe that he thought I was "angry" at him, and I've always wondered what he really meant by that, and whether he noticed I was aroused and not angry. But aside from that one time, John had never given any signal that he noticed anything unusual about the way I was acting toward him. That's why, when something - I'm not sure what it was, exactly - did happen between us, it was a complete surprise to me and I didn't know how to respond. There were three of these "somethings." Each of them happened quickly, and they had an air of being rushed and rather clumsy. Granted, I say they were "clumsy," but that didn't make them any less intense. In fact, maybe the clumsiness and unexpectedness increased the intensity. Maybe the awkwardness of those "somethings" is part of the reason I've never been able to get them out of my mind, and maybe it's why they still get me all hot and bothered whenever I think about them. The first happened rather early that summer. Neither of us had permanent jobs (he was mowing lawns from time to time), so we had plenty of time to kill. His house was only a five minute bike ride away, so I would ride over a few times a week just to hang out. Even though I remember feeling very grown up and mature as my "last" summer started, I also remember a desire for one last summer as a kid. I think John felt the same way, and one day when he and I were just hanging out at his house, he suggested that we play a board game - Third Reich. I say this as if the game was kid stuff, but it's actually a super-complicated war game, with a hex-based map of Europe and little cardboard chits representing your units, and you play out the entire war with one person playing as the Axis and the other as the Allies. It would take several hours over multiple sessions. I went back to my house and brought the game over to his place, so that we could set everything up in a camping trailer that was kept in his driveway. It could get kind of hot in that trailer on a summer afternoon, but it was one place where we could leave the game out for days on end. John was the only one of my friends who would do something like this with me, and I still have very happy memories of the hours we spent playing that game. It was a relief not to think about the responsibilities looming that fall, and just have fun. Also, I found myself enjoying the time alone with John in a way I'd never experienced before. I guess I could see that he was growing up, becoming more mature, while still being a lot of fun. I liked the way he let himself go, and get enthusiastic about the game. Even though there was still a part of myself that thought he was very sexy, those thoughts just sort of faded away and it was like a special time we had together, as friends. I was playing as the Axis, and John was the Allies. For those of you who are a little rusty on your World War II history, you should know that for the Axis - for me - the game is a race against time. I start the game in 1939 with the superior force and have lots of easy success in the beginning, but once the U.S. enters the war at the end of 1941, my fate is more or less sealed. When the U.S. - John, in this case - brings its overwhelming industrial might and hundreds of thousands of fit and capable soldiers to the table, I can try to postpone the inevitable but there is little I can do to resist. I know that at some point I will end up surrounded in Berlin, where the only honorable choice is surrender. For me, as the Axis, the "victory conditions" depend on marshaling my gradually weakening defenses to continue the game as long as I can until it reaches its unavoidable conclusion. For John, as the Allies, victory depends on the reverse: forcing me to capitulate as quickly as possible. I think you get the picture. In our game, John had benefitted from some lucky throws of the dice, a few astute tactical moves, and perhaps some defensive blunders on my part. Even though I had marched triumphally into Paris in 1940, as expected, John had succeeded in advancing D-Day to the fall of 1943, so that by the spring of 1944 his forces had penetrated deeply into Germany from all sides - west, south and east. It seemed obvious what would happen next but John and I were having too much fun to end the game so quickly, so John started to ease up on me. He held his forces back, giving me extra time to rearrange my defenses. We soon acknowledged what was going on and started laughing about how he had me in a position where, whenever he so chose, he could take full control. Of Berlin, that is. And since I had opted to allow Hitler's assassination in early 1944, my level-headed generals would peacefully surrender. John knew that I wouldn't put up much of a fight. We continued like that for a while, as the warm afternoon progressed slowly toward a quiet summer evening, just playfully allowing our forces to circle one another, until at some point I think we had lost interest in the game and were just sitting and talking - laughing and joking about everything that had happened around graduation a few weeks ago. John was in a good mood, and it was one of the few times I remember really getting the chance to talk with him. He was usually pretty reserved, and of course everything that happened with Emily put a wedge between us. By that time, however, she had moved on, although of course John never talked to me about that. Anyway, we were just talking when all of a sudden he says, "Hey, check it out. Remember my cousin that just went in to the Army? Look what he gave me before he left." He reached into a cabinet and pulled out the latest issue of Playboy magazine. Although I had looked at "Gary's books" with John before, I had never looked at anything like that with John at his house, so I was a little surprised by this. I don't remember us saying much to each other. He just laid it on the table, on top of the game board, and we both just stood there, looking at the pictorials and the centerfolds. After just a few minutes, I saw out of the corner of my eye that his hand had wandered over toward his crotch and every once in a while he'd sort of rub the bulge that had grown there. I couldn't tell if he was even conscious of what he was doing and I don't think he realized that I had noticed. (I need to digress here and say that all the other times that I, John or any of my other friends looked at "Gary's books," there wasn't any activity like that. It wasn't even sexual, really. We just looked at them for a while and usually went on to something else. Also, although there was often some wrestling and horseplay like guys will do, I don't remember anything remotely sexual about anything between us. That's why what John was doing this time was a complete shock to me and I really just didn't know how to react to it.) After a minute or two of his left hand wandering back and forth between his crotch and his hip, I saw that it had settled to stay on his crotch while his right hand turned the pages of the magazine. My attention similarly wandered between the girls in the photos and his left hand, but eventually I focused only on the way he was lightly squeezing and rubbing his cock, the outline of which was now obvious through his tight jeans. We had reached the main pictorial in that issue: a spread on the Girls of the Big Ten. Maybe this caught our attention because we were thinking of heading off to college that fall. John slowed down and it seemed he was paying closer attention to each photo. I remember being curious about why in particular these girls had caught his eye. It was when we turned to a picture of a girl made up to look sort of "bookish" that something happened. I still remember the picture well. She was a brunette, standing between two stacks in a library, some books scattered around. (Maybe this is the source of my librarian fetish!) She wore glasses and her hair was up, but sexily tousled. With one hand, she pulled up her sweater to reveal large, gorgeous breasts and a taut young co-ed's tummy. With the other, she pulled down the waistband of her very short plaid skirt to give a nice view of her hip bone and a hint of what was between her legs. "I could really see you with a girl like that." I don't know where those words came from. In fact, I wasn't sure I had actually spoken them aloud until I heard him say, "Huh?" For a second, I was completely panicked. I had no idea what to say or do next. So I took the simple route of just saying the same thing again. "I mean, it's like I could picture you with a girl like that." This time, however, I dared to take a quick peek over at his face to see his reaction. I remember how surprised I was that he didn't seem angry or even bothered by what I said. Instead, he had only this weird sort of curious look on his face, blended with the arousal that had not dissipated. "Really?" he said, and I remember (although maybe this is an embellishment) that his voice was tinged with pride. I also noticed that his hand had stayed on his crotch, although it wasn't moving. I figured that he wanted me to explain what I just said, so I tried to be as nonchalant as possible. "Yeah. I mean, I imagine that when you're in college you'll end up with a girl like that. That had the one benefit of being true, although John may not have suspected what I meant when I said I "imagined" that. In fact, I had had extremely vivid fantasies involving John and girls like that. But I was smart enough (I guess) not to go into detail about them. "That's what you think about when you see these pictures? You think about me?" He still didn't sound mad, but I instinctively started to back-pedal. Not to put too fine a point on it, but at that time I was completely ashamed of how much I thought about him. "No, not about you," I answered, trying my best not to sound like a faggot (so I thought at the time). "I mean I think about the girl. I sort of imagine her life, what she does ... I make up a story about her." "Wow," he said. "I just look at the girl and think how much I wanna fuck her." That sure caught my attention. It wasn't the image of him fucking her (I had had that image in my mind for weeks by now), it was the way he said it. So direct, so forceful. I liked it. Trying to recover, I tried to think of something I could say that would get him to continue talking like that. "That's right, fucking," I said. I liked that word now. "I like to imagine her in action." That was it. I had stumbled on the magic words. His hand started moving. Slowly, but there he was, stroking himself through his tight jeans ... right next to me. I remember wondering what I should do, and I couldn't come up with any answer. I knew I shouldn't say anything about what he was doing, or act like I even noticed, but I didn't know if he expected me to join in. I tried to keep looking at the magazine but it became impossible for me not to shift my eyes over toward his hand. I tried to do so discretely and I remember being very worried that he would notice that I was watching him. "What sort of action?" he said, while he kept his eyes on the girl in the picture and his hand on his cock. I didn't expect him to ask me that, and my mind scrambled for an instant, thinking about how he expected me to respond. I figured that since we had just been talking about what I think about when I look at pictures in Playboy, that's what I should tell him - what I think about. So, I made up some story on the spot. Nothing even comparable to what I fantasized about at the time, but it was the best I could do with him being right there and me not wanting to get too graphic (that is, not wanting to tell him how explicit my fantasies about him could be). "Like she's waiting to meet you in the library ... but she gets impatient." I think my story was about her touching herself and then he comes along. "And you're fucking her," I remember saying (that word, again). "Fucking her hard, pumping into her." I was only a minute or two into my story, when he just gave a little grunt and I looked up at his face. He had sort of a glassy look in his eye. I don't think he had actually come, but I could tell he was close. I assumed he would want to be alone. "Yeah," I said. "So that's sort of what I think about when I look at these girls." "Huh," he said, noncommittally, "wow." I couldn't tell what he was thinking about. The girls, the fantasy I had just shared with him, or something else. I don't think we said much more. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all, he didn't have much of a way with words. I just made some excuse and not more than 2 minutes later I was getting back on my bike to head home. Riding home, I thought of nothing other than what I knew John was doing right at that moment, and straddling the bicycle seat did nothing to alleviate my desire to do exactly the same thing. I went straight to my room, stripped out of my clothes and pulled out a few of the Playboy magazines I had stashed in my closet. As I stroked myself to the first of several orgasms, I gazed at the familiar girls in the magazines and thought about the fantasies I had come up with to explain what each of them was thinking at the moment the photographer had captured her image. But soon enough, I was thinking more about which one of my fantasies John would have liked the most. I began to replay what had just happened between us; and by the second time I came, I had pushed aside the magazines and lay back with my eyes closed. It was significant that I had done that, because of the "rules" that I had about masturbating. I've since heard this is common among teenagers (girls too). When I first started, I had in my head all sorts of rules about when and how I could masturbate. Like, I could only do it while I was looking at a picture of a girl. I remember how excited I was when, for the first time, I masturbated with my eyes closed, with only the images in my own head to arouse me. I felt so nasty. This time, the feeling of transgression that was such a thrill for me was magnified as I started working toward my third orgasm, because my thoughts were so directly linked to what John and I had just done. Sure, I had fantasized about him while I masturbated numerous times before, but they were always indistinct images of him like he was at that volleyball game - his shirt off and the sweat making his pecs and abs glisten in the sun. But this time, those images faded away, and I didn't try to get them back, because they were replaced by the memories of what I had just seen. I was watching closely as his hand moved back and forth along his cock, its throbbing clearly evident through those tight jeans. Just as his fingers reached up to lower his zipper and release it, I came for the third time. After this, I remember the feelings of urgency start to dissipate, but I was by no means ready to stop. Unexpectedly, the next image in my mind was not of what happened after he unzipped his jeans, but rather of a while before that, when we were laughing and joking after our game. I thought about how happy he had looked then, and maybe I was seeing him through Emily's eyes, or maybe I was trying to work through why she had chosen him over me. "I think he's just cute as a guy." She was right. Why was I trying to deny that? And as I lay back in my bed that day, my eyes closed, stroking myself slowly now, not urgently like before, John and I weren't laughing or joking any more, because we had found something much more fun to do with each other, and I did surrender to him. And when I came the fourth time, I was bent over the table and the chits from the game were flying in every direction because John was doing to me exactly what the Allies had done to the Germans. It was so rough and hard and exciting and sexy and I wanted it so bad. Over the next few days, I continued to think constantly about watching John touch himself as I told him that story, but I didn't know what to make of it or even if it meant anything at all. The excitement seemed to wear off as I realized that, after all, I'd been looking at Playboys and touching myself for years, so there was really nothing unusual about John doing so too. Maybe he just couldn't help himself that day. And although I liked the idea of sharing my fantasy with him, I was too young and unsure of myself to even contemplate that he would be interested in hearing another one of my stories. I was sure that the Playboy magazine he had would do more to get him off than anything I could do. Looking back on it, however, I realize that my focus on watching John touch himself was a way to avoid thinking about something that had a far more powerful effect on me, but was also very disturbing. That is, I remember trying to put the latter part of my masturbatory fantasy completely out of my mind. I tried not to think about laughing and joking with him, or about kissing him, and I tried especially hard not to think about him taking me from behind. But the more I tried to stop thinking about that, the more I knew it was really what I most wanted to think about - it was what truly excited me about John. And that was very disturbing for me. Most of all, it was disturbing because this was the first time I had fantasized about having sex with John (or any guy), and even more than the worry that I might be gay - which was the worst possibility I could imagine - was the worry that I had fantasized about being so submissive to him. And of course, what really worried me was that I liked it so much. So much so, in fact, that I began to fear that I had given John some signal of what I wanted him to do to me. I started going back over what we had been doing before John brought out the Playboy, and I began to worry that I had been too obvious about allowing John to win our game. I reproached myself about how happy I had been to see his face light up each time he had won a roll of the dice or conquered another piece of my territory. I realized that seeing his reaction was the only thing I really liked about the game (the rest of which became boring for me) and I wondered if that possibility - seeing him win, seeing him defeat me - was the only reason I had agreed to play in the first place. I hated all these feelings, though, not because they were bad, but because they were so good. The feelings of vulnerability to him - of inferiority to him - became so intensely pleasurable for me that I began to think about another realm where he had proven his superiority to me. He had also conquered Emily, of course. He had seduced her in a way that I never could have. And that fascinated me. In a way that I'm sure I couldn't fully understand at the time, I was fascinated by the process of seduction, and in particular by how John had seduced Emily. And I realized that I wanted John to seduce me too. I had seen how much Emily liked it, and I wanted to experience the same thing. I knew that I could never be as seductive as John (for all the reasons described above, he had a much greater power over women than I could ever have), so I fantasized about assuming the role that was available to me - the intensely pleasurable role of being the target of his seduction. But at the same time I felt guilty, angry, and resentful that John had inspired these desires in me. The connection to our game, as you can tell from my description, was very vivid for me. I started to feel angry that he had somehow corrupted our special time together, even though I also knew that was ridiculous. It also bothered me that, even though I thought John was incredibly sexy, I didn't have any of the affectionate feelings about him that I had about Emily and other girls. I just didn't know why I felt such an intense physical desire; I didn't know whether I truly wanted him to seduce me, to take me, or if he had somehow tricked me into wanting that. The same way he had tricked Emily. I began thinking that he must have somehow dominated her thoughts in the same way he dominated mine and caused her to surrender to him. And even though thoughts of John dominating Emily were very exciting for me, it disturbed me that he seemed to have the power to seduce people and at the same time make them like it, make them want to be seduced like I wanted so bad. It was really weird. But there were other things going on for me that summer, which distracted me from my thoughts about John. We were each pretty busy with preparations for college. I was taking my freshman English class at summer school to get a jump start on the first year. The liberal arts college I would be attending was in town, and I felt very mature as I drove down to campus three days a week. I really got into the class and I think it had a lot to do with my majoring in English eventually and my love of writing. Still, despite the distraction of the class, I think that I must have continued to be nervous about seeing John again because I didn't call him or try to see him, even though the Third Reich game belonged to me and I would have to collect it from him at some point. I'm pretty sure now that I was nervous about the associations that would trigger in my mind when I saw him and that game again, nervous about the signals I would give, and nervous about the feelings and desires I would be unable to hide. I was sure that John would have been very angry if he knew what I was thinking about him. Even though I had tried, I couldn't stop thinking about him bending me over the game table, and I was worried that when I saw him again it would be obvious how much I wanted him to do that. I have to wonder, too, if I was just waiting for John to call me. He did, eventually, on a quiet weekday afternoon, and that led to the second "something" that happened that summer between me and John. When he called, he just said that he had the game and he could either bring it over or I could come get it. When he gave me that choice, the first thing I thought of was the stack of Playboys in my closet, and how much I would enjoy sharing them with him. I probably hoped that he would be impressed by how many tempting young women I could offer to him, and also that he would give in to any temptations he felt. But much as I would have liked that, I knew there was no way I could actually have been so bold, so I decided to go over to his house, instead. He said that any time would be fine, so I told him I'd be there in a few minutes. Before hopping onto my bike to head over to his house, I stopped for a minute to consider what I was wearing and decided to change into my tightest, and therefore most favorite, pair of jeans. I also changed into a smaller t-shirt. I've always been self-conscious about being on the skinny side, and I thought that wearing a smaller shirt would at least give the impression that I was more muscular than I really was. When John opened the door to his house a few minutes later, the simple white t-shirt he was wearing reminded me that he would never have such worries. I knew he was swimming in the summer rec league and working out every day in the pool, and if anything he was even more toned and his arms, chest and shoulders were more developed than when I had seen him playing volleyball at that graduation party. "C'mon in," he said, turning to walk back into his house, as my eyes dropped to see he was wearing the same very tight pair of jeans that he'd had on the last time. "So I've got the game," he said, taking it from a shelf in his living room. "Thanks," I said, taking it from him. I was both disappointed, and relieved, to see that he had already packed it up. I realized that I'd been hoping to go back to the camper where we'd been playing, laughing and talking, and that the process of putting the game away would bring us back - well, bring us back to what we had shared there. Still, I was relieved because, again, I wasn't sure I would have been able to be in that camper again without doing something that would reveal to John what I had been thinking about him - that is, what I wanted him to do to me. "Think you'd like to play again sometime?" I remember just sort of hearing those words coming out of my mouth before I knew what I was asking, and I was probably hoping that he understood that I meant Third Reich, and not any other "game" we could play. "Don't know," he answered. "It's kind of a busy summer." "Yeah." I remember trying not to sound disappointed. "So how's that class going?" I wouldn't have expected that he'd bring that up, since we hadn't talked about it much before, so I'm sure I didn't know quite what to say. "It's cool. We do these writing exercises and stuff." I was even more surprised when he said something like, "You'd be good at that." Guys don't usually pay each other compliments, and even though I can't now recall exactly what he said, I remember that it made me rather nervous. Even more than being worried that he'd notice I was physically attracted to him, I was very self-conscious about (or was it denial of?) starting to feel any affection toward him. So I'm certain I didn't know what to say and just stood there awkwardly in his living room. "I mean, you were always a good writer. Like that dungeon you made up last year. That was cool." He was talking about something I had made up or Dungeons & Dragons the previous summer. It was one of the last times that he and I had played with Gary and our other friends. Usually, we used a store-bought adventure, but that time I had made the effort to create one myself, and lead my friends through it. I still remember some of it now. It was a pretty routine story about some necromancer who had a plan to reanimate some corpses and, well, do whatever it is you can do with a reanimated corpse army. I didn't have to worry about that because I was sure that John and my friends would be able to put a stop to his plan. Anyway, I'm sure I was flattered that he would even remember it. With all the drama involving Emily during the intervening year, it was a reminder that he was still a good friend. But I'm also sure I could have never predicted what his remembering my creative skills would inspire in him that afternoon. "Hey, that reminds me of something. Wait here," he said, before quickly turning and walking out of the room. I stood there for a moment, thinking he would come right back, but when he didn't, I sat down on the couch to wait. A few moments later, he returned with something in his hands. He seemed rather pleased with himself for remembering whatever it was that he had. He sat down next to me and gave it to me. When I looked down to see it was an issue of Penthouse Letters, I didn't know what to say or do. "My cousin gave me this, too," he said, matter-of-factly. I just sat there, tongue tied, unable to believe or understand what was happening. I couldn't believe he'd really want to do what I was dying for him to do - look at another of his cousin's magazines with me. In fact, his enthusiastic demeanor wasn't at all what I would have expected if he wanted to "get it on," as I would have said at the time. "Take a look," he said. I started paging through the magazine. I had seen Penthouse Letters before, and enjoyed its stories, but I don't remember looking at it with any of my friends and I didn't know then whether or not I should let on that I was familiar with it. I didn't know where he was going with this. I just continued looking through the magazine, saying something like "wow" if there was an especially sexy picture of some girl. After a minute or two of this, he finally spoke up. "It's cool because it's got letters that people send in." "Yeah," I said, still wondering how I was supposed to react. This was very weird. "Letters about doing it." Really, I was barely listening to him. My mind was working furiously and I was trying to maintain my composure. "Cool," I said. I figured I should stop and look at some page of the magazine and act like I was reading it. The printed words were just gibberish to me, however. "I thought about you because it reminded me of that story you were telling the other day." Now that surely got my attention. He was thinking about me? Really? He was still thinking about that story? I guess he saw the expression on my face and misread it as confusion or maybe something worse. He started to explain himself. "You know, you were telling me how you make up stories about the girl you're looking at. I think a lot of these stories are made up like that." "No shit, Sherlock." Of course, I didn't say that out loud. I was still reeling with the idea of him thinking about me when he looked at this magazine. About this time, I remember that my attention had been caught by a particular picture in the magazine, that I couldn't help staring at, even though John was sitting right next to me. It was a bit different from most of the other pictures because in addition to the girl in the foreground there was a man in the background. The man was hunky and muscular and he had brown curly hair. He was shirtless, wearing jeans, and he looked like he was doing yard work. For my purposes, it was John. The girl in the foreground was a nondescript blonde looking at the guy though a window from inside her house. Clearly she was in rapture over this hunk outside her window. Her shirt was open and she was touching her breasts, her mouth open and her eyes half closed. But if John was annoyed that I would focus on this picture, he didn't show it. Instead, his reaction was quite the opposite. "That's a good one. I bet you'll like it." It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the story that accompanied the picture. After this, I think there was just an awkward silence between us. My impression is that neither of us knew what to say or do next, although looking back on it, I wonder whether John was struggling as hard as I was to repress what I really wanted to do. I can't remember exactly what I was thinking at that moment, but I do remember a million thoughts running through my head and one of them was that I should thank him - I should thank him for giving me the Penthouse Letters and also for sharing the Playboy with me before, and the best way for me to thank him would be to get on my knees on the floor in front of him ... and then my mind reeled thinking of all the things I wanted to do for him and I wanted him to do to me and then I had to get out of there because he was going to realize what I was thinking and he was going to be mad. So I said something about needing to get home and a few minutes later I was pedaling my bike back home, with the magazine John had given me clutched tightly in my hand. Straddling the bicycle seat in those tight jeans, the image that consumed me was of John's toned, muscular body taking the place of the bicycle. We each had our shirts off, but we were still wearing our super tight jeans. As I straddled him, pressing my hips against his, I was reading the story that he had picked out for me. I got home and practically ran to my room. I pulled off my shirt but left on my tight jeans as I lay back on my bed. I made no pretense of looking at the magazine or thinking of anything other than my fantasy as I rubbed my hand over my crotch, stroking my cock through my jeans. In my fantasy, I had tossed aside the magazine and continued telling John my own story about the hunk I'd seen in the picture. About him, that is. And he liked my story much better. I knew that because of the way he ran his hands up my back and then to the back of my head, pulling me down toward him until my lips met his and we kissed. Then his hands moved over my back to my ass and he was grabbing and massaging my butt until he just gripped my jeans in his strong hands and ripped them right apart along the center seam, so my ass was now completely exposed to him. I replayed this fantasy through three shuddering orgasms before I bothered to even look at the magazine that John had given me. What I remember enjoying most about that fantasy was how powerful John was, how I knew that he could rip me apart just as easily as he ripped my jeans, and how futile it would be for me to try to resist him. I think I spent the rest of that day in my room, reading every story in the Penthouse Letters, and coming a few more times when one or the other would particularly catch my attention. Of course, I thought about reading each story for John. As I remember my fantasies at the time, I think I was always the one reading (he didn't read to me) and I didn't fantasize about touching myself with him, or about him touching me. Instead, my fantasy was that my reading the stories was something I was doing for him, to please him. I'm not sure why I looked at it that way, but I remember vividly that I did. Over about the next week, I looked carefully through all the stories, thinking especially about why he had picked out the particular one that he had said I would really like. Of course, now I don't really remember any of the stories (I kept the magazine for only about 10 years!) and my recollection of my thought process at the time is pretty fuzzy, but one thing I remember was that the story was the only one in the magazine that featured a man being watched. True, after about the first page it talked only about the woman pleasuring herself to a thunderous orgasm, but the premise of the story was that she was watching the guy working in his yard. "Holy shit," I thought, "John likes to be watched?" I was thrilled to think that John might have some idea just how sexy he was, but like before, I couldn't help being disturbed and nervous about this. Even though John seemed sincere when he said I'd like the story, in my recollection his voice gradually took on a mocking tone, and I imagined that he had said I'd like it because he knew (and was disgusted by) how much I'd liked watching him touch himself that time before. "I bet you'll like this one, you little fruit," he said with a sneer, unzipping his tight jeans and releasing his cock so he could stroke himself in front of me. Of course, that was exactly what I wanted, and he was exactly right about me, so all I could say was, "Yes, John, I like it, I like watching you a lot," which is what I said every one of the countless times I came when I replayed this scene in my head while masturbating. After I finished each of those times, I would ask myself, "Is that what I am? A little fruit? John's little fruit?" But I knew I wasn't gay - I was sure of it - so I was confused by my feelings, and confused why John thought I would like this story. I remember that another possible explanation occurred to me at the time, but it was so outlandish as to be impossible, and yet exciting at the same time. It was this: maybe John was thinking that I was the character doing the watching in the story - the hot, sexy woman. Could it be that John wanted me to be that woman; the woman who is so captivated by this guy's body. By John's body. Did he want me to be the woman - the person - who masturbates while watching him, thinking about his incredibly hot body. Did John want me to be exactly what I was? Much as it thrilled me to contemplate that John would have such thoughts, and much as I enjoyed fantasizing about being exactly that, I was still an 18 year old guy who was very anxious about my own fantasies. Did John think I was a girl? Worse yet, did I want to be a girl - his girl? Did he want to show me that he could have me just like he had Emily? Did I want him to have me? These thoughts terrified me as much as they excited me. Over the next few weeks, I remember there were a few times that I built up my courage and thought about calling him and somehow trying to suggest that we get together again. I imagined that I would be able to suggest to him that I could read one of the stories for him, but I knew that would never happen. I also thought about asking him to help me do some work around my yard, but I thought that would be beyond weird. The reality was that he never called me or mentioned that magazine to me again, and of course I didn't bring it up. Now on to the third, and strangest, interlude. This one is also the most involved so I might have to skip past some of the details. The last time I saw John that summer was when a group of frats and sororities had a mixer for all the incoming freshman in our area who were going to any of the state schools. He was invited because he was going to a state engineering school, and he could bring a guest. He invited me. I remember being thrilled, and nervous, that he asked me to go with him, but I reminded myself that he really didn't have any better choice, and he was probably very apprehensive about meeting the older kids. I knew I would be the last thing on his mind. In those days the attitude toward alcohol, beer especially, was way more liberal than it is now. There were free-flowing kegs at the party, but John and I kept ourselves to just one beer, and were just kind of standing around not knowing what to do. As the evening wore on the party got a bit more lively, and looking back on it I can imagine that the older students were showing off a bit in front of the incoming freshman about how they could party. I also noticed, to my amazement, how the girls were a lot more "forward" than I was used to. At that age, being with girls in that situation would just confuse and overwhelm me. I was definitely not popular with girls, at least not in that way. I would just retreat into my shell. My friends, John included, were pretty much the same. Even though he had had the experience with Emily (who I think was his first girlfriend), he had the same awkward way around girls that I had. But at that party, one girl in particular latched on to John. She would be a junior in the upcoming year, and despite her being two years older than us, I could tell the beers she was drinking were having an effect. She couldn't stop talking about how cute John is, how sexy he is, how sexy his butt is, and how much he was going to drive the girls crazy with his tight jeans. All of this I had heard before, of course, and I have to say that I found myself getting very turned on by how she was coming on to him. Or, should I say, I was becoming incredibly turned on because I was hearing out of her pretty mouth the same thoughts I had been thinking all summer. At one point, she said, to no one in particular, "I just want to bite his butt, don't you want to bite his butt." And I said, laughing, "Go ahead, John, let her bite your butt. Let's see her do it." But despite my willingness to joke about it, I definitely remember feeling uncomfortable because I was worried the others at the party would notice my real reaction. To get to the point, when John and I were getting ready to leave, she asked whether he could give her a ride home. "How obvious can this be?" I thought, not at all surprised that she would want to leave with John. I was sure that he would just drop me off at my house and then he would be free to do whatever he wanted with this girl. So we arrived at my house and he stopped the car. But I was in the back seat of a two-door car; I couldn't get out unless one of them got up and opened the door for me. She was drunk, but I was starting to think that maybe she wasn't as drunk as she acted and that instead she had created an excuse for herself to do something "crazy" with John. John, being an 18 year old guy, was I'm sure willing to do whatever she wanted, so neither of them made any move to let me out of the car. Instead, they were joking around and I think he was sort of showing off for her. I didn't know whether to be mad or instead, to do what I really wanted and just sit back and enjoy watching him seduce her right there in front of me. I remember wondering if he wanted me to leave or what and then all of a sudden they just started making out right there in the front seat. I was like, "Holy shit." But I didn't know what I was supposed to do or how I was supposed to react. I didn't even know if he realized I was there. Maybe he just got really horny and wanted to start making out with her. I was entranced. Sitting there in the back seat, watching them intently, becoming very turned on. I had a very clear view of them. John had leaned across the bucket seats and was pretty much on top of her. After a few moments they kind of got their rhythm and settled down into kissing and running their hands over each other. I'm pretty sure that one of her hands found his ass and stayed there. After about five minutes, John jerked himself back into his seat. This made me jump back into my own seat, worried for an instant that he remembered I was there and I made him angry. But instead, in a single smooth motion, he reached down to his car seat and pulled the lever to let it recline all the way back. With his other hand, he unzipped his tight jeans and there was his cock. His very hard cock. What this meant was that John's head was no more than a foot away from me. It would have been incredibly easy, I would have barely had to move my hand, to reach out and touch those curls, brush my hand against his cheek, or bring my fingers to his lips. But of course, I didn't do anything like that. Instead, I sat there completely motionless, staring at his cock. Not moving my eyes, barely blinking. I honestly don't know if he even looked at me. Since I didn't look at the girl, I can't say what her reaction was, but it must have been positive. She just shifted in her seat and reached out to start giving him a hand job, stroking her hand up and down on his cock. Slowly at first, but then faster as his precum dripped out to lubricate him. I never said anything, and neither did John. I was afraid, frankly, to even look at him, or to do anything that would make him realize I was there with him. I just wanted to watch. If I could have disappeared, I would have. At some point, I'm pretty sure that she bent over and licked his cock once or twice, but she didn't actually suck on him. John came soon afterwards, just minutes after she started. He came hard and I had a good view of his hips pulsing up and down, and his shoulders sort of shuddered. I remember glancing at his mouth, too, as he grunted; and I think I saw his tongue. I felt like I could have watched him come a thousand times (and I would, and more, in my countless replays of these events). After John came, I remember the girl saying, "You liked that, huh?" as she smiled at him. Then, she turned to look at me, and I have the clearest memory of her saying, simply, "It looks like you liked it as much as him." I was so stunned by this whole performance that I had no idea what to say to her. In fact, I probably wasn't even sure she had spoken to me. I think I just mumbled something like, "I need to get out." John was in no condition to move, and in fact I couldn't tell if he knew I was there. So the girl shifted in her seat and then got up, out of the car, and reached in to move the seat forward for me. I got out of the car, barely looking at her, and started walking down the street to my house. I am pretty sure, however, that as I left I looked back through the car window and saw that she had mounted on top of him and was humping against his cock, with her pants still on. I think she looked back at me and smiled. That's my last memory of the scene. When I got home I went straight to a window where I could see his car and lost no time. I started masturbating furiously, forcing myself to stay quiet in the darkened house. His car stayed there about 15 minutes before leaving. I couldn't see anything of what they were doing in it, but I came three times, at least - the memory of John stretched out in front of me and her hand pumping away at his hard cock was enough for me. In the light of morning the next day, I was angry about what had happened. Sure, it was a turn on for me, but I was angry at John for doing that to me. In my mind, he had done the whole thing to humiliate me, to show me again that he could have the girl and I couldn't. That I would have to sit there and watch him, just like I had watched him make out with Emily on the couch in my house. Frankly, it never occurred to me that maybe he wanted to share this with me in a positive way. There were even darker thoughts in the back of my mind. I remember thinking again that John had done this to show me what I was, what I had become. After telling me about the story he liked, about how he liked to be watched, along came the opportunity for him to give me a lesson, a lesson in what I should do, in what he wanted. In what I wanted. That was what really got me the most, the fear that this was what I wanted. The fear that when I watched him make out with Emily, I was angry at her, not him. That I wanted him, not her. It was those thoughts that bothered me the most. It was those thoughts that put me over the edge the next morning, when I lay in bed masturbating frantically as a I replayed the scene in the car from the night before. Even though my thoughts about John, and about that night, were very intense, I don't remember talking much with him over the rest of the summer. I'm sure that at some point we said goodbye before heading off to college, but I don't remember any details. Then there was just my one short visit with him that fall, after we had both started college. And I never saw or heard from him again. * * * To be totally frank, I have to say that, as I look back on those three "somethings" that happened between me and John, I can't make any assurances about whether my memories accurately reflect what really happened. I can't even say for sure how I remembered them at the time. It was a long time ago - the summer of 1986, when we were both only 18. But it's not merely a matter of the time that had passed since I had last seen John. In addition, my memories of that summer had gotten mixed up by everything that happened since then. Just a few weeks after that "something" with John in his car, I had started college, and my life had changed completely. Not only was living in the dorm an entirely new lifestyle for me, but my experiences with women changed too. When I got to college, I realized that most girls in high school (I know there are exceptions, but this is true for most) are really attracted to only three types of guys - the "cute" boy-band type (which included John), the alpha-male quarterback type, or the bad-boy biker. I was definitely not in any of those categories. But college has an effect of widening one's horizons in every possible way, and it was like the girls (and guys too, I'm sure) were liberated to see the merit in all sorts of guys, including the shy, bookish, geeky category that included me. Anyway, for whatever reason, I immediately had much better luck with women and I had my first real girlfriend within a few weeks of arriving on campus. Needless to say, my thoughts of John faded very quickly. As I was thinking this, I arrived at work, and took my bike to the rack in the garage. I smiled when it occurred to me that the time it took me to run through my memories of that summer coincided perfectly with my morning commute. As I walked from the garage to the locker room at work, I thought that I couldn't believe it had been 24 years since that summer, since I had last seen John. Certainly, the man who greeted me as I turned the corner and looked in the large mirror in the locker room couldn't be more than two decades out of high school, could he? A lot of the women I meet wouldn't say so. I have a boyish face, and that, combined with my slim body, I guess, leads them to be pleasantly surprised when I tell them my age. It seems this would be a good time to describe myself, physically, if only to give you a break from my lengthy description of virtually every thought I had that day! (Although, if you've seen the cover of this story, you may not need this description - that's a self-portrait.) I'm not movie-star handsome, but I think I've finally achieved what I so wanted in high school. That is, women consider me to be "cute," in a bookish way. Probably my most striking features are my red hair (which, luckily for me, is still as soft and thick as it was in high school) and blue-grey eyes. Women seem to notice both. They also notice my butt. My real motivation for biking to work is so that I can wear a tight pair of 505s and be complimented for doing so. For me, time spent at the gym or on my bike doesn't cause me to bulk up; I've always been the type who gets leaner as I exercise more. I'm about 5'8" and 165 pounds, and although I've never had anything close to six-pack abs, I have a reasonably flat stomach (other than the little bit below my belly button that I'm always trying to work off, but not to the point of giving up a glass or two of wine every evening!) and nicely toned shoulders, arms and legs. Let's just say I'm comfortable with my own body, and maybe if I tell you what I did that morning in the locker room at work, you will understand just how comfortable! Since no one else was around the locker room that morning (probably too hot outside for most people), I felt no inhibition about pulling off my shirt and taking a moment to look at myself in the mirror. That day, I had chosen to wear a pair of light cotton shorts that are a little short and a little snug, and I turned in front of the mirror, admiring my body. I've always thought that the reason I don't feel like a complete narcissist doing this is that, like I said before, I don't have a movie star-handsome face or body. I feel like a sort of average-looking guy who's done well to keep himself in good shape even at the ripe old age of 42. As a woman friend once said when I returned from a run, "You're in pretty good shape for a guy who sits at a desk all day!" Thinking of that compliment, I slipped off my shorts, and stopped again to look at the 2xist y-back thong I was wearing. You may think it a little odd that I remember exactly which pair of underwear I was wearing, but on the other hand, you might be, like me, the type of person who chooses his or her underwear every day based on mood. Ever since my junior year abroad in Europe, I've enjoyed wearing nice underwear. And since I've stayed the same weight for years, I've amassed quite a collection. I've never counted but I probably own about 30 pairs - boxer briefs, bikini briefs, and thongs. In the heat of a Charlotte summer, a thong is the way to go beneath the dress slacks I wear at work. Calvin Klein is the standby, of course, and more recently I've found much to my liking at H&M, as well as purchases online from Hom, Cin2, 2xist, RIPS and other brands. Standing there in my thong, looking at myself in the mirror, my eyes were drawn to my hips, of course, and then I turned slightly to look over my shoulder at my ass. I liked the way the two straps of the y-back sort of pressed against my flesh, indicating how firm it is. I reached back and ran my hand down to just briefly grab my ass, before I slipped the thong off, tossed it into an open locker, and headed to the shower. I wonder if you'll be surprised that I masturbated in the locker room shower that morning. I felt no hesitancy in doing so. I had figured out that, because of the way the locker room was configured, I would hear the door open well before someone could walk around the corner and have any idea what I was doing. And, believe me, I had enough experience masturbating to know that I could stop (or at least, stop making any sound) if absolutely necessary. And, given the memories that played through my mind as I rode my bike into work that morning, I'm sure that you won't be surprised at all to hear that as I masturbated in the locker room shower that morning, spreading my legs open a bit and leaning forward to brace my arm against the glistening shower tile that offered a teasing reflection of my chest heaving as my breath came faster and I stroked myself harder, I thought about John. * * * Sitting at my desk just a few minutes later, my thoughts soon wandered back to John, and it occurred to me, with a little laugh to myself, that maybe it hadn't been a good idea to choose a CK string bikini to wear that day. Given that there wasn't much going on at work, I would be vulnerable to almost any distraction, and the feel of the bikini around my hips combined with the memories spurred by John's phone call the day before were more than enough to fit the bill. I said that my memories of that summer after graduation had faded when I went to college, but I have to admit that my memories of John were never completely extinguished. I'm not sure of the exact timing, but within a few years after finishing college and getting married, I became comfortable enough to let my mind wander back to that summer, and in particular to how attractive and, yes, sexy, he had been. As my mind wandered, John returned to my masturbatory fantasies, and my memories of that summer lost all their negative connotations. Instead, those events became suffused with a thrilling eroticism for me, as they became part of some far-off fantasy world of my imagination. And, to make another little confession here, my memories of John from that summer are probably a large part of the reason that, even though I have never been attracted to any other guy in a sexual or romantic way, I've also never had any qualms about noticing that the young, very handsome, and (most important) very well-built men that are featured on the web sites where I buy my underwear can be very sexy. And I'm not shy about telling you that, for me, those guys are always named John. So now you can probably better understand why John's call, on that lazy August afternoon in 2010, had such an effect on me. As I sat at my desk the next day thinking about it , what stuck most in my mind was that even though our conversation could have been very uncomfortable for me, John was actually very pleasant, self-deprecating, perceptive and, for lack of a better word, charming. No, there is no lack of a better word. That's the best word. He was very charming. He somehow deflected the fact that we hadn't spoken in more than two decades. And he somehow managed not to bring up our "history," but at the same time in a way that didn't seem like he was avoiding anything but simply as if those events hadn't happened, or if they had happened, they didn't matter. But as pleasant as our conversation had been, I also had some unpleasant thoughts that Wednesday afternoon - unpleasant thoughts about the reality of seeing him again. And to be honest, I felt just as much fear as anticipation. I think I've already explained the anticipation. Like I said, my memories of John had become quite erotic over the intervening 24 years. And I realized as I sat daydreaming in my office that I was greatly intrigued by the idea of replaying those three "somethings" with John, now that we were mature adults, now that we could really enjoy them. But, as a mature adult, I knew it wasn't that simple, and I was actually mortified at the prospect of looking in the face of the person who had shared those "somethings" with me. Sure, John had been charming on the phone and maybe he's a very nice guy and maybe he's as sexy as I remember him being in high school, but I thought that dinner with him was far more likely to be an uncomfortable evening where I'm reminded of a time when I wasn't as fabulous as I am now. And we wouldn't have anything to talk about. Worse yet, there were even darker thoughts in the back of my mind. Was he planning to blackmail me somehow? Or, even more horrifying in some ways, just sit there and mock me? Those were the thoughts I couldn't keep out of my head as I rode my bike back home that evening. Of course, I realized they were ridiculous thoughts, but like I said, I felt as much fear as anticipation. * * * Those dark thoughts were chased away by the light of day the next morning, Thursday, when I was preoccupied with the logistics of preparing for drinks and dinner with John that night. One thing I really don't like is the feeling of going out in the evening in the same clothes I've been wearing all day. I'm just particular about that, and all the more so on a hot, sticky August day. So I thought about coming home to change after work, but nixed that idea as too chaotic and just - awkward. I decided that I would drive in to work and bring a change of clothes with me. I could shower at work, change, and then go to see John refreshed - and ready. I packed up everything I would need, including my cologne, which I didn't usually bring to work. As for what to wear, the choice turned out to be easy. Starting with the most important, my choice of underwear was a no brainer. I'd wear my favorite - a hipster made by Hom in a silvery, lightweight microfiber. It provides support, but I can barely feel it at all. Also, I knew I would enjoy the feel of the slinky fabric around my hips. For my shirt, I chose a coral-colored dress shirt that has inspired compliments from many people (women and even some men). I guess they think it goes well with my red hair and light complexion. As for my slacks, I wore my favorite pair of not-overtly-sexy dress slacks - a pair of flat front khakis that I say are not-overtly-sexy because they aren't really tight, but they fit very well and I look good in them. I put all these clothes on a hanger (tucking the hipster in the pants pocket) and went to work confident in my choice and sure that I would look good that evening. By 6 pm the office was starting to empty out. I was to meet John at 7 and the restaurant was barely a 10 minute walk away. Once I was in the shower in the locker room at work, I remembered when I had last been there the day before, and the thoughts of John that had inspired me to pleasure myself. I gave serious thought to doing so again, and the erection which grew as I looked forward to the evening certainly encouraged me, but ultimately I preferred to continue teasing myself to heighten my anticipation. Plus, I was so excited about seeing John that I wanted to get ready as quickly as I could. Still, I took my time getting dressed and once I was ready to go I took a moment to look at myself in the mirror, make sure everything was in place and put a spritz of cologne on my chest. I was so excited as I headed out through the lobby that I had to keep checking that I hadn't forgotten anything. It was a short walk from my office over to Tryon, where I'd be meeting John. It's a pleasant, lively street with lots of restaurants, and seeing the other people heading out to dinner only heightened my anticipation. That was what I felt. Any fear or trepidation from earlier had completely dissipated, and I looked forward to my dinner with John with an exciting sense of anticipation. Act One, Scene 1 A moderately upscale seafood restaurant amid high rise office towers in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. The McCormick & Schmick's that John chose is at the corner of Tryon and 4th Street. It's on the street level of one of those glass and steel office buildings that were so popular in the boom. I liked this restaurant, and thought it was a good choice for the evening. It wasn't incredibly fancy, but it was nice enough that we could have a pleasant, "sophisticated" evening. I didn't want to meet him in a burger joint, and was glad when he suggested a place like this. I thought it showed we have similar tastes. I told the lady at the door that I was meeting someone at the bar, and she merely smiled and gestured over her shoulder. Looking past her, I saw John immediately. That is, I saw his hair. There weren't many people at the bar so he certainly stood out, with what I was glad to see was a rather unruly shock of brown curly hair on his head. During the five seconds that I walked across the room toward him, my first thought was that I was relieved to see that he still had his hair, and in pretty much the same style, although tamed from high school, of course. It was rather long and his curls fell down around his ears, the back of his head to his shirt collar, and even over his forehead. It gave his head kind of a bushy appearance that might, in fact, have looked unkempt and unattractive in some ways. But to me, it brought back memories of high school and I found it very intriguing. It was one of the many things that were inviting to me, that made me want to get to know him better. One of my pet peeves about men is how they so frequently cut their hair short. This bugs me because it's one of the ways men so wrongly deny their own sexuality. It's like they want to neuter themselves, I think. So the first thing I thought, after the simple relief that John still had his wonderful hair in the first place, was to be happy that John had left it long. It was a sign that he knew how attractive he was, which is something that I wanted him to revel in and enjoy, rather than deny. I only hoped that he would feel the same about my hair, which I had let grow rather long over the summer. I walked up to him and, without saying anything, he must have heard me approach in the quiet restaurant. He turned around and I remember being just a bit overwhelmed by the way he smiled at me. It was warm and genuine in a way that I hadn't quite expected. "Hey, Mark, it's great to see you." He reached out and gave me a confident, comfortable hand shake, and put his other hand on my arm. It was all so much that I didn't say anything at first. I just sort of settled onto the barstool next to him. In that first two seconds of seeing him, it hit me all at once. He was the same person I knew from high school, I was sure of that, but he had changed - in a positive way. His face had matured, and I would have to say that he was now more handsome than cute. As I looked at him, I realized that I was far more confident about appraising a man on the basis of his appearance than I would have been in high school. I didn't feel any reluctance in allowing myself to notice his dark brown eyes, his thick eyebrows, and even the eyelashes that Emily had thought were so attractive. I also noticed his nose and lips, and thought to myself that he has rather prominent features, almost a "heavy," Mediterranean look. That can be off-putting to me sometimes, but he had just enough delicacy to his face to attenuate that. You know, looking back on it, I can say for sure that upon first seeing him, I liked him more because he was John, the guy I remembered, now grown into a man, rather than because he was flat out good looking. John wasn't attractive in a drop-dead, motion picture idol kind of way. But I thought right away that he was a very handsome man, because of features, like the heavy eyebrows and prominent nose, that are appealing to me. (Probably because I associate those features with him!) The last thing I noticed at first is that he had very nice skin. Smooth and tan, but with crow's feet around the eyes that didn't bother me. In fact, I find them to be attractive - on men or women - because they reflect an experience with life that I see as a point of commonality with myself. In this respect, I can compare him to George Clooney, for example. Yes, his skin was that nice. We just sort of sat there for a moment, looking at each other. I gave a little laugh, looked down at the bar, and then looked right back up at him. There wasn't anyone else nearby, and I was glad that we had just a moment of quiet to enjoy seeing each other for the first time in so long. He broke the ice. "You haven't changed at all." I laughed. "I was going to say the same thing." I paused. I looked at him closely, and noticed the way he was smiling at me. He seemed so direct and open. It emboldened me to be a little more honest. "I mean, you have changed, of course, but I can still see the same you." As I said this, I was instantly afraid it sounded lame, and maybe too forward, but he took it the right way. He seemed to think for a moment and then smiled. "Yeah, it's been a long time." He laughed, looked away, and then back at me as he reached over and sort of shook my arm for a second. I liked the way he was confident in touching me like that, and was aware of trying to let him know so with my body language. "So how long has it been?" he asked. "It'll be our 25th reunion next spring," I replied. "Wow," he said, and he seemed to be thinking of something. I thought about the date, too, and was suddenly apprehensive. Next spring would be 25 years after graduation. That meant that 24 years ago was the summer after graduation. That summer when he, when we .... That time in his car, it could have been just this time of year. Twenty-four years ago tonight, for all I knew. I changed the subject. "What are you drinking?" I tried to say it lightly, gesturing toward his glass. "Jack and Coke." "Jesus Christ." He laughed. That was what we and the guys would drink to get drunk fast. "I can't touch that stuff," I said, which was true. "I can't even look at the label without getting nauseous." "Doesn't bother me," he said, grinning. "I love the stuff." "You're a stronger man than I, John." The bartender approached us. She was a pretty young girl in her twenties. "What're you having?" she asked me, brightly. I looked at her and thought for a moment. Should I try to prove how strong I am? No, that's one aspect of my high school days with John that I'm not interested in reliving. "I'll have a gin & tonic," I said. "Tanqueray ok?" "House brand is fine, and lemon please, not lime." "English-style, huh?" She smiled. "On the rocks, right?" She wanted to get this right. "Yes, please." "I'll have another one of these," John added. "Ok, coming right up." We noticed she had to step away for more supplies. "This sure brings back memories," I said, "except we had to be our own bartenders." "That's right," he smiled. "We did a pretty good job." I looked at him and thought for a moment. I knew what I most wanted to say to him so I decided just to say it up front. If this wasn't his style or he thought it was weird, at least I would know so right away. "You know, looking back on it, I feel really lucky to have met Gary and the rest of those guys." (I said it that way because I knew John before I knew Gary and the others, so John and I sort of met them together.) "They were really a good group of people. Most of all, they were inclusive, you know. They never made anyone feel left out. I understand now how rare that is and how important that is. I've been thinking a lot about it these past few years." He looked over at me, and maybe I was flattering myself but I think he was sort of impressed I'd say something like that. It wasn't really the sort of small talk someone would make right off the bat like this. What's more, I liked the way he smiled at me, the way he looked right into my eyes. About this time, the bartender was approaching us with our drinks. He raised his glass with a twinkle in his eye and said, "Plus, they started us off on a life-long healthy relationship with alcohol." I laughed. "Here's to that!" With perfect timing, the bartender held out my glass to me and I clinked it against his. All three of us laughed. She was probably thinking that this was going to be a good night for her. As she took John's empty and handed him his glass, she asked, "A little reunion, huh?" John turned to smile at her. "That's right, 24 years." "I could tell," she said, smiling at us. Then she added, "Well, there must be some kind of preservative in this stuff because you two have certainly kept well!" She added a little wink at the end. John and I looked at each other and laughed. The evening had certainly started out on the right foot. We kept talking at the bar, but we didn't dwell on our high school days. I was glad for that. We changed the subject to what we'd done since. John told me he'd gone to work for General Dynamics after college, as an engineer. "In materials science?" I asked. "That's right, how'd you know?" "I remember you telling me one time that was going to be a big field. Ceramics and all that. You were going to get in on the ground floor." I was remembering John's geeky side. In contrast to his laconic ways with girls and other, well, personal stuff, he could be very intense and dynamic when talking about scientific topics and all the crazy schemes that guys are into. I was sort of curious whether he'd maintained that boyish enthusiasm. "That's right," he said, smiling as he realized I had remembered this about him. I think he was flattered. "It has turned out to be a great field. Ceramics, carbon fibers, all that stuff. That's pretty much what I do every day. Play around with it to find ways to make it stronger, more versatile." I enjoyed letting him talk about this for a while. I pride myself in an ability to converse on just about any subject, so we talked about the tech side of the defense field. He got all excited and I saw that he hadn't lost any of his enthusiasm. If anything, he was more confident about expressing it now. And that, is always attractive, isn't it? Look, I'll freely admit it: I like talking to an attractive person. Sitting next to a good looking person and speaking with them is always enjoyable for me, especially if they are well spoken and interesting, but even if they're not. Up to this point those people had been almost universally female; John was one of the few guys that I had ever had this feeling with. Angie (that was the bartender's name, we learned) brought me another G&T, while John sipped his second Jack & Coke. The subject changed to what I had done, and I told him how much I liked my job in Charlotte, the trips to New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, and the other things that made it so interesting on a daily basis. He was especially interested when I told him about all my experiences in London (where I had worked for two years in the nineties) and the rest of Europe. As we wrapped up all that, I said, "Talking about Europe always reminds me of great restaurants and makes me hungry. Why don't we get something to eat?" At this point, we'd already been in the restaurant for an hour. Neither of us seemed to be in a hurry. I, myself, knew that I had all night, and John had nowhere he needed to go. We settled up with Angie, and she was happy to steer us in the right direction. "Lisa will be glad to take care of you for dinner. I'll arrange a table for you." As we got up to follow Lisa, another twenty-something cutie, to our table, I'll be honest that I deliberately let John walk ahead of me. I'm serious when I say that it was important for me to get a good look at his butt. I just had to see if my memory was correct or if for all these years I had been mistaken and remembering only an embellished reality. As he walked toward the tables, I didn't care if anyone else noticed - I took a nice long look at his ass. I was not disappointed. His khaki slacks were, naturally, not as tight as I remembered from high school, but they still fit very well around and across his round, well-muscled butt. It was very nice, I have to say. Small, and yet well-developed. And now, combining his mature, attractive personality with that butt, made it look only better. What's more, I was reminded, as I let my eyes travel up his back to his shoulders, men typically continue to add muscle into their twenties, and I saw that he had certainly done so since I'd last seen him. My memory of him was of an athletic, well-developed guy; but the person now before me was a man - a very athletic, muscular man. I haven't mentioned yet that he was wearing a light yellow, fairly tight polo shirt. It showed off his muscles well. His shoulders in particular were a little wider than mine and very well developed, while his chest was similar to mine but bulked up to match his shoulders. He had very nice biceps, which were shown off by the stretch of the elastic around the short sleeves. As he stood up, I noticed that there didn't appear to be any excess on his midsection, and I found myself curious to know if he had kept the six pack abs that I still remembered so vividly. While John was certainly very fit and attractive, to give you the right impression I have to say he was not overwhelmingly so. First, since many women, it seems, like a tall guy, I should point out that he was only an inch or two taller than me - say, 5'10". Overall, he had the body of a 42 year-old man who kept in shape, not a body builder. He was not really muscly or bulked up in any way. In fact, I would say that he was rather slim, except for the muscles around his shoulders, chest and arms, and he was built pretty much like me around his hips. I would guess that overall, he weighed about 15 pounds more than me. In my eyes, those 15 pounds were pure muscle - wrapped around his entire torso, concentrating especially on the shoulders and arms, and leaving just a bit of muscle to accentuate the ass and the legs We settled down at our table and Lisa left us menus and a wine list to peruse. It didn't take us long to make our selections, and he let me choose a bottle of white wine (Sancerre - one of my favorites). I told him how happy I was that he didn't fuss over the menu. In fact, even given how attractive he was, it could have been possible for him to really aggravate me if he ordered his meal the wrong way. Allow me to digress for a moment, because if you understand this, you'll understand what I liked about John. My pet peeve, that which drives me absolutely crazy, is when people go to a restaurant and it turns out they have no interest in the food. They have all sorts of weird questions about everything. It turns out they can't touch half of what's on the menu. You know what I mean. I'm not talking about a legitimate interest in knowing how a dish is made, or a food allergy. I'm talking about an inability to know what you want, or to make a decision not knowing exactly what you'll get but trusting that it might turn out to be good. What I hate about this behavior is that I see it as a neurotic need to hold yourself back, to keep your options open, to sort of hold yourself apart from the world and avoid making a decision. "I say, dive in, order the fucking food and get on with your life! It's a restaurant for God's sake. The whole point is that someone else is going to cook your food for you. Let it go. That's why you came here!" He was just looking at me, and laughing. "I'm sorry about my rant," I said. "Thank you for letting me say that. Really, I just can't stand it." "It's ok," he said, still laughing. It seemed like he enjoyed it. He looked down at his table and said, "Better not tell them about the dirty fork, right." "Exactly," I said, thinking that Monty Python has the answer for everything. I looked at him for a minute. "Really, I'm glad you aren't like that, John. I'm happy to see that you're someone who has gone out and lived your life." "Well, you too, man. I mean look at all you've done - your job, that time you spent in London. You certainly haven't held back." I felt flattered and almost shy about looking at him when he said that. I started thinking to myself, "Here's a guy I could really spend some time with." So, dinner with John got off to a great start, but I have to say it really got into high gear when our pretty young waitress brought our appetizers. John had ordered the oysters (of all things! I got one of my favorite dishes - fried calamari), and when our waitress put the plate in front of him, she said "You better watch out for these things, I hear they give you super-powers." John looked up at her, gave her a winning smile, and said "Nothing you couldn't handle, I'm sure." Without missing a beat, she came back with "Oh, what a special compliment," while looking over at me and rolling her eyes in mock sarcasm. Looking back at John, I could see that he was momentarily worried he'd insulted her, as the smile faded from his face. She looked back at him, smiled, and put her hand on his shoulder. "That's ok, hon, you enjoy your oysters, ok." During the moment that they remained like this, I was struck by two things. First, that she had said "hon," as if she were some old-timey waitress, even though she was at least 15 years younger than us. The second thing was that although it may have looked like she was simply patting him on the shoulder, I noticed that she was actually quite delicately and teasingly running her fingers along his deltoid muscle. She was actually making a very erotic and subtle move on him. This interlude passed in a moment, however, and we both turned to enjoy watching her walk back toward the kitchen. I looked over at him, laughing quietly, and said teasingly, "Ladykiller. You'll have to give me lessons." He laughed too, and we looked at each other for a second before turning to look at her again. She had stopped to look back at us, and seemed flustered when we both looked at her at the same time. She regained her composure quickly, however, and headed into the kitchen. I looked back at him. Despite the humor of the situation, I was impressed, and more than a little turned on, when I thought of the reaction he'd provoked in her. It seemed so natural that she would be attracted to him, not me But again, I was determined to keep the evening positive. "You must get that a lot," I said, lightly. He looked at me and smiled. I think he was trying to gauge my reaction. To see if I was just teasing him or whether I was mocking him. I tried to explain. "I mean, I'm sure you've had your share of opportunities, what with travelling for work all the time. How do you cope with the temptation?" He hesitated, then he made some little joke like, "I lead a monk's life." It seemed like he didn't want to talk about this, but I wasn't sure why. I didn't know if he really didn't want to talk about it, or if he just thought I didn't want to hear about it. I tried to indicate as sincerely as I could that I was interested. "No, seriously, I'm curious, I'd like to know." "Why?" he asked. "Do you feel that temptation?" A reasonable question, I guess. After all, he didn't really know me now and he would want to know more about who he was talking to before he would open up about something like this. I continued in a serious tone. I hoped I wasn't bringing him down, but frankly I was tired of rarely having the opportunity to talk about the things that are important to me, and tired of always having to engage in small talk that I found to be superficial. I wanted to reach out to him and see if he had any of the same experiences that I did, and if so, what his reaction was. "To be honest, yes, I do feel temptation. And I bet you feel it too and I'm wondering how you put up with it." I paused; he was listening. "I mean, I don't really have anyone to talk about this with." He could see I was serious, and he gave it some thought and then responded. I really liked that. I had never before been able to have a conversation like this with a guy. "Sure, I'm tempted," he said. "All the time." He looked over at our waitress, then back at me, and smiled. "And I've had my share of opportunities." "Oh really?" I said, in an over-the-top teasing tone. "Stop that," he said, laughing. "So how do you deal with it?" I asked, turning also to look at our waitress, who was busy with something at the service station not far away from our table. He kept his eyes locked on her for another moment, then turned to look back at me. "I think, in the end," he said, "I can hold myself back because my wife keeps me happy, and I've got all that out of my system." He stopped; he seemed to be almost daring me to ask him to continue. Not challenging me, but daring me in a friendly way. For whatever the reason, whether it was the drinks and the half bottle of wine we'd already finished, or the bond we had already developed, or just because it was John and I was very eager to hear whatever I could about his sex life, I was bolder than I have ever been with any other man. With any other man, this topic would have made me very (no, extremely) uncomfortable. But with him, that night, I simply said, slowly, "I'd like to hear more about each of those topics." He looked at me, started to speak, and then took a sip of his wine. "You would, huh?" "Yes, John," I answered, smiling, "I would." "Well," he began, obviously happy to have been asked, "let me start at the beginning. This goes back to just after the last time we saw each other." It was significant to me that he put it like that; I was glad to know he still remembered when we had last seen each other. "My life changed a lot when I went to college. I bet it was the same for you." I nodded, but didn't respond directly. "There were like, three guys for every girl there, you know." I knew what he was referring to; he had gone to a typical engineering school. "But this also meant that there were a whole bunch of guys there, all looking to get into trouble, right?" He paused. I thought, "A bunch of guys, no girls? Where is this going?" But he quickly made it clear for me. "So all the girls in all the little towns down there all knew this. To them, it was like a big pot of honey surrounded by a bunch of bee hives, or something like that." We both laughed. "I never thought of that," I said. "Yeah, it was pretty much of a shock to me too. But looking back on it, I can see it from their perspective. It was like, `Crew Slut,' you know?" I knew. That's a Frank Zappa song. I sang the key words back to him. "So you're gettin' kind of tired of all the local clowns ...." "Exactly," he said, laughing, but I could also tell he was enjoying the memory. "Like every weekend there's like a hundred girls swarming to the parties on campus. They can get away from the creeps in their hometowns and party with a bunch of horny, frustrated, geeky guys who are gonna be thrilled to see them. Then, after the party, they can just head on home and not be bothered by the guy. It's like," he paused, "no consequences, man." He stopped to let this sink in for me. I have to say, I was impressed by the mental image this conjured up for me. I could see John, as I knew he was at that age, being very popular with those girls. "I could see you with a girl like that." That was the first thought that went through my mind. I thought back to the image of the "librarian" in the Playboy we had looked at so long ago. And I thought of what I had said, as I finished my story for him. "... and you're fucking her." I also remembered well the college girl he had taken home, the last night I saw him that summer. How eager she had been to be with him. Ok, I'm being polite. I was really thinking about how eager she was to stroke his cock in his car that night. And about how right she was - I had enjoyed watching. A lot. Maybe even more than he did. Yep, I was sure he was very popular with those girls. He continued. "I'm tellin' you man. That's what it was like. Nearly every weekend for four years." "You do the math," I thought to myself. I mean, he could have had, like, a hundred women. But all I could say, without a trace of sarcasm, was, "Wow." I didn't know how to say that I wanted him to continue, that I wanted to hear more details of his conquests. I could only sit there and hope he would indulge me with more. Still, my reaction must have been obvious to him, because he continued with his story, adding the details that I craved. "And it's not like they were all desperate girls who couldn't get a guy any other way. For some of them, it was quite the opposite. Some of them were the queen bees of their little hives, and they'd make a competition out of it. A group of them would come to campus on a Friday night and it'd be like, which one of us can get a guy in bed the fastest." He looked at me again. I was sure that by now, he knew how much I was enjoying listening to him. "And they were all ages, too. A lot of them were our age, just not in college. Some of them were older; married, even." He paused to let that sink in. "And a lot of them were in high school." He paused for an even longer time. "I mean, high school girls, Mark. High school." The last two words were only a whisper. We sat there for a moment, just sipping our wine and looking at each other. My mind was going a mile a minute. About this time, a busboy came to clear away our appetizer dishes. I was glad it wasn't Lisa, our waitress. I'd have been embarrassed, given what I was thinking. After a moment, I just shook my head and smiled at him. "That is so far beyond what I expected you to say, John. So far beyond." As if on cue, our perky waitress appeared to say, "Everything all right for you guys?" We both just looked at her, then looked at each other, and laughed. "Oh, I get it. Inside joke. Well, don't let me bother you," she said, in a mock-hurt tone. "No, no, wait," I said. "We're sorry." I looked at John, then back at her. "I think we'll have another bottle of wine." "My pleasure," she said, pouring half of what remained of the bottle into each of our glasses, then turning to slowly walk away. We both turned to watch her, and after she disappeared into the kitchen, I turned back to John. "So what about your wife?" I asked. At that moment, John had taken a sip of his wine, and he pretended to spit it out in mock surprise, "My who?" he asked. "She must have been quite a lady if she took you away from all that," I said jokingly but also suggestively. I wanted to hear all the details. "Well, she didn't. Actually, I didn't meet her until I graduated and was working for General Dynamics." "So, what's the story?" "It was weird, you know. Feast or famine. When I started working I had loads more money, of course, and more free time, once I settled into a routine, but, well ..." he trailed off. "Well, what?" "Well, nothing could compare to college," he said, laughing. "The girls didn't want to make the trip to the big city?" I joked. "They probably would have, but it would have been a lot different, wouldn't it? It wouldn't be `no consequences' any more, would it? So that's when I learned, you know, it's easier with girls when it's not going to lead to anything, right?" "Right," I said, noncommittally. I hadn't had the same experience with young women that he had. "I'm not complaining," he concluded. Lisa returned with our main courses and our second bottle of wine, and we exchanged more "pleasantries" with her. She was having an easy time earning her tip tonight, I thought, but I was happy to do my best to make her evening a pleasant one. Resuming our conversation after she had served us, I asked, "So there you were, frustrated and deprived ..." "That's right, man, you put it like that and I know what my wife took advantage of!" We both laughed. John told me how, at the time, she lived with two roommates and had a circle of other friends. "There were three of them I sorta liked," he continued, "which I know can be a really dangerous situation. But I lucked out, I think, because it turns out my wife, or future wife at that time, likes a challenge. It's like, she set out to prove she was the one for me; that she could make me happier than either of the other two could. She really made me happy. She still does." He paused. It seemed he was thinking about all of what he had described for me, and then said, "So, I have her to keep me happy, and I remember that ... well, you can have too much of a good thing." I just sat there for a moment, looking at him. I was thinking, "How could I possibly top that?" It was a little bit intimidating, actually, to think about all the experiences John had with women. I had enjoyed hearing about them, for sure, but what would he think of me? Still, I didn't want to bring the evening down. I was happy for him, really. In my book, he got exactly what he deserved. After we sat silently for a minute or two, he seemed to get a little nervous, as if he was worried he had shared too much with me. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "No, no, not at all. It's just ..." "Yeah?" he asked. He seemed to be genuinely trying to encourage me, as if he were truly interested in what I had to say. "I mean, it's just that my experience hasn't been like that." I trailed off. Looking back on it, this was really a crucial point in our conversation, and what he was about to say became one of the reasons I liked him so much, as a person and as a friend. I realized from this how much he had changed since high school and why he was special. "You know, I've figured out that there's really no point in comparing myself to other people. They are them and I'm me and we can both be ok. There's some things they'll have a lot better than me, and some things where they're a lot worse. You can't change that." It was more the way he said this than what he said. He wasn't preaching to put me down or trying to cheer me up. He just said it, matter-of-factly. Then, he looked me in the eye and said, "So what's been your experience?" I looked at him, and couldn't help smiling. "You really wanna know?" I said, teasing just a bit. "I do," he said, laughing. Then he stopped. "No, seriously, tell me." How could I resist this opportunity? I couldn't, of course. "Well, you could say I was a late bloomer." "Ok, you were a late bloomer." "No, seriously." "Ok, you were a late bloomer," he said, in a mock-serious tone. I just gave him a look, but I appreciated what he was doing. It really brought me out of my funk. "I had my first girlfriend freshman year," I began. "It lasted a few months." I didn't have to tell him that I didn't have any girlfriends in high school. We left that subject untouched. "What was her name?" he asked. "Amy," I answered. I smiled at the thought of her, like she had just joined us at the table, to listen. I looked across the room and saw Emily enjoying a meal with a friend, too. She looked over at us, and raised her glass in an encouraging toast. "My school wasn't like yours. It was 50/50 guys and girls. They were all great people, and looking back on it, it was a huge missed opportunity for me, when it came to girls. It's weird, because I had a great time, lots of friends, but after my first girlfriend I just didn't make the right connections with girls in freshman year. Not for lack of trying. It was sorta frustrating. "Anyway, everything else was beyond great. I went to France for a summer program after that first year, and fell in love with Europe and the history there and everything, really." "Must've been girls there," he said. "Oh yeah," I said, smiling. "I'll tell you a story. That summer, I'd just turned 19, had been in the country only a few weeks. We're staying at a hostel out in the countryside. Must be somethin' about those country girls, John." He smiled at me. "Anyway, they invite a few kids from the local university to come over, have a glass of wine, and visit with us Americans. It would have been one of the first times I sat down to talk with someone from another country, and I'm sure the same with them. We talked an hour or two; you know, like you do so much in college. It was fun, there's probably two dozen of us in the room all together. "When they get up to go, the custom in France is you always say hello and good-bye directly to each person in the room. So they get up to go and one of the girls walks over to me to say goodbye." "And?" "Well, a girl in France says goodbye by putting her hand on the guy's shoulder and leaning in to brush her cheek against his, and then the same on the other cheek. It's called a bisou." "A bisou, huh? Nice custom." "I'll say. But I remember being momentarily in total shock that a girl I barely knew would just walk up to me and do that. Everyone in the room laughed; me too. They weren't laughing at me, and I wasn't embarrassed, it was just funny. "For me, for a girl to do that - well, it was quite an event." He smiled at me, letting me enjoy the moment before I went on. I looked up, and I was almost sure I saw that French girl walking out of the restaurant. "So that will tell you something about how I was at that age," I concluded. "A little different from you, I think." "Yeah," he said, "I understand." He seemed a bit wistful. In a strange way, I guess we each desired a little more of the other's life. "Anyway," I continued, "in that summer program I met a group of people, including my future wife, who became my life-long friends. And I came back sophomore year with high expectations of applying to my college life all the sophistication I had developed that summer in France. But that didn't work out, exactly. Everything was ok. I don't mean I had any huge problems. But I think I was still just sort of awkward, like I had a hard time fitting in. I'm sure I'm the only person who's ever had that problem." He smiled at me. "I don't know, maybe it put girls off in some way - my `worldliness,' that is." (I actually made little air quotes.) "I was pretty intense, emotionally, and I guess kind of a romantic in ways that a 19 or 20 year old girl just isn't going to expect." He looked at me, and I thought he was thinking about something. I guess a kind of curious expression crossed my face - I know I was eager for any feedback he would give - and he said, "It's nothing." But I could tell there was something on his mind, and he said, "It's just that, looking back on how I remember you ... Well, I could see how ..." He trailed off. "How was I?" I asked, smiling at him. "You said it yourself. You were intense. Now go on with your story," he chided me, and I knew he didn't want to go further with this. I was still curious, but I continued. "So skip to my junior year abroad in England, and I started dating the girl I would marry. She was on the program with me. We've been together ever since. She's the one for me." "That's nice," he said, sincerely. "Yeah, it is." I paused. "But she's the one if you know what I mean. The only one I've known." I paused again. "In a biblical sense," I said, trying to make it sound like a joke. I wasn't sure I succeeded. He ignored any negativity in my tone. "But something tells me there's more to this story," he said, encouragingly. At this point, our waitress came over to clear away our main courses. "We'll look at a dessert menu," I said. Then, we had a good 20 minutes just to talk, and finish our wine. "So, I was with her for about 10 years before, well, you know, my mind started to wander." "Wow," he said. I think he understood how different our lives had been. "They were great years, don't get me wrong. We both went to graduate school, moved to Charlotte and then each started working. Had the total `young-professionals-in-love' experience. After we started working, we had plenty of money and bought our first home. We travelled the world together. That's how I spent my 20s. I was living the dream, literally. It was fantastic. She's amazing." "But?" "But after 10 years or so, it was like I woke up from that dream and realized that something was different, and now I was caught up in this humungous catch-22, where women were concerned." He looked at me like he sort of understood, and was trying to understand, but he was puzzled. I could also tell from his reaction, though, that he was intrigued. I tried to explain further. "It's like I had all these opportunities that I didn't have ten years earlier, but at the same time, none of those opportunities were really available to me." "How d'you mean?" he asked. "It's like this. Imagine that we were having this dinner 20 years ago - you know, around the time my future wife and I had been dating for a while and were thinking about getting married. If Lisa was our waitress then, the only thing we would think when we saw her would be ... well, you know." "Has that changed?" he responded, smiling. "No, not at all, but that's my point. We haven't changed at all. Wait, that's not it. Our goals haven't changed, but we have." I was getting a little excited. This was important to me, and I wanted him to understand, but since I had never talked about this with anyone, it was hard for me to express. It seemed like he wanted to help me along. "How have we changed?" "I guess that's it," I answered. "That's a good question. We've gotten older, of course, married, and everything that comes with it, but the weird thing is, this makes us more attractive to Lisa, not less." He had a thoughtful look now. I think he was beginning to understand. "So if we were here 20 years ago," I continued, "I'm sure Lisa wouldn't treat us the same way. Not with the same respect, you know, the same interest. And we'd be looking across the room at the old guys getting her all hot and bothered and we'd just be thinking to ourselves that women don't make any sense. You remember thinking that about women, right?" He nodded, smiling. Now I was sure he understood. "I'm not saying that young women actually like older men more than younger guys. Of course not. And I'll admit that Lisa would probably be a lot more likely to leave with those young guys than she would with us." "Hey man, don't knock my chances," he interrupted. "Present company excepted," I said, smiling back at him, and I had to wonder if he knew how much I meant it. After allowing the image of John and Lisa together to float pleasantly through my head for a moment, I continued. "What it is, I think, is that the situation between women and men sort of flips around. When we're young, the women think they've got it all figured out, and the guys are pretty much clueless; but as we get older, the guys start to get a clue, and so young women are intrigued by older men. Older guys aren't as easy to peg, and there's nothing more attractive to a girl than a challenge." He nodded, but I could tell that he didn't quite get what my point was. "You still haven't said what the catch-22 is," he said. "The catch-22 is, we're older, we're married, and so now there's not much we can really do about it, right?" I paused. Up until now, I had just made some generic observations about life that, I admit, were not especially insightful. To really make my point, I'd have to talk about things with John that I'd never talked about with anyone else. "Now this is going to sound stupid, I know, but bear with me." To his credit, John gave me the best look of encouragement he could. "I mean, look at me," I continued. "I'm, well, I would say fairly attractive for a guy just over 40." Ok, he couldn't help it. John had to laugh. I had to laugh too. I now understood why I had never talked about this with anyone else, but I was in too deep and had to keep going. "No, seriously," I said, half to myself really, because I couldn't stop laughing any more than John could. "I mean, I have a job, I've accomplished a lot, I'm in shape, I'm smart and funny." "Sounds like you've been reading too many personal ads," he said, still laughing. "Probably," I answered, but it did seem I'd gotten through the hardest part of what I wanted to say. "But, whatever, my point is that whether or not I've accurately described myself, I know that even if I have, I'm not really going to get anything from it, am I?" He looked back at me, and stopped laughing. I think that what I said struck a chord for him, and I was relieved (if not happy) when I realized that he's probably thought the same thing. "I'm not saying I'm angry about this. No doubt about that. I know how good I've got it. It's just the catch-22 aspect of it that gets me. At the same time that women seem to have an increasing interest in me, it's pretty much impossible for me to do anything about it." "You're right," he said, giving me a look that convinced me I had made my point. With that out of the way, it was much easier for me to continue. "So here's how I see it," I continued, now eager to share what I had kept pent up inside for so long. "Young women, for example. Which for me is anyone under 30. Like I said, they love guys like us, right?" "This is a problem?" he asked, smiling. "Of course not," I continued. "Let's just say, we can have a lot of positive interaction with young women, and leave it at that. But I think it really boils down to what Groucho Marx said, as far as they're concerned - I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me for a member. You know what I mean?" "Not really," he laughed. "But yeah, I guess so. Go on." "Maybe I'm just too much of a goody-goody, but in my book, young women shouldn't be with guys like us. They should be with young men, or, even better, other young women." This got a smile out of him, and I paused for a minute before continuing. "So I'm sort of suspicious of any young woman who would really want to spend any amount of time with me." "This happens to you a lot?" he asked, teasing me. "Ok, not a lot, but it happens. Like there's this girl, Rachel, in my office. I say `girl,' but she's 25. We flirt with each other in the office and we have coffee together every once in a while. Which means that I sit and look at her and think about how gorgeous she is while she prattles on about the things that seem so important to a woman of 25. `Will my boyfriend and I get married? Should I stay in Charlotte or move to the big city?' It doesn't matter to me so long as she tosses her long brown hair over her shoulder every once in a while." "You're pathetic," he said, laughing. "Am I? You're different?" He didn't have a response for that. "So I can go on?" I asked, pretending to take offense. "Sure," he said, "tell me about your other conquests." "I wouldn't use that word," I continued, smiling at what I took to be a veiled compliment from him, "but you know, it has been interesting. It took me a while to put this together, but it seems like once I passed age 30, let's say, that's when it really changed. "Since then, in the past 10 years or so, there have been a few times when a confident, assertive woman would notice me. You know what I mean, right, the sort of young, attractive woman that, well, for obvious reasons, may not be too popular with the other women in the office?" He nodded. He knew the type. "Well, like I said, I could tell that she noticed me. Maybe because of something I said at a meeting, or just the way I carry myself in the office. I think it's what I said before. Over the years, I've matured and gained confidence. It sounds like a total cliché, but when I look back on the times this has happened, it was obvious from the look on her face. It's like she said to herself, `Now there's a man I want to get to know, I wanna be a part of what he's got going on.'" "You're thinking of someone specific," he said, with a note of triumph in his voice. He was right, I knew, he had me figured out. "Ok, I'll admit, it happens rarely," I continued, ignoring his comment. "But it has happened enough times that I've realized I like it." I felt the hesitancy returning; that feeling that I couldn't believe I was telling him this, but I had come so far that I couldn't stop without saying what I really wanted to say most. "I like the feeling of being pursued, I guess," I said quietly. We were both quiet for a minute. In fact, I was afraid to look at him, for fear of seeing his reaction, but what he said eventually reassured me. "Everyone does," he said simply. I looked up at him, and we smiled at each other for just a moment. It's difficult to describe, and it may sound schmaltzy, but at that moment I really felt nothing for him but a feeling of camaraderie. It felt to me as if I had just expressed something that we had each been through, and thought about a lot, over the past decade or so, but just had never had the chance to talk about before. It was a good feeling. "So these are all young women?" he asked, brightly. "No way, man," I answered, encouraged to go on by his tone. "I don't discriminate. Let me tell you, I think it's a myth that somehow all women over 30 struggle with their appearance and that men give up on them. I see lots and lots of women in, let's say, the 30 to 50 range, who don't seem to me to be struggling. But, let's face it, where's it going to go? Who are these women?" I paused, and then answered my own question. "There are co-workers, obviously, but in addition to it being wrong to mix work responsibilities with personal feelings, I've seen lots of office romances and they're always the subject of disdain and derision, in my experience. Plus, I spend enough time at work." He gave me a look that had just the hint of a suggestion that maybe his experiences had been different, but I decided to let it go. "The others are female friends and acquaintances. But, again, let's be real. For a guy like me, most of them are the moms of my kids' friends and such. Now I enjoy a nice MILF as much as the next guy," (we laughed) "but no, I'm not going to go there. As sexy as they may be, it's not going to lead to anything." We paused for a moment. I'm sure the many women who passed through our minds would probably be flattered to know what we thought about them, although they may never have admitted it to themselves. "So where does that leave me?" I asked, and then answered my own question again. "Let me tell you where it leaves me. I love women. I cannot put into words how much I love women. I'm fascinated by them and just love everything about them - looking at them, listening to them talk, reading about them. And I have a pretty easy way with women and they like me too. So, we can flirt and provide a lot of positive feelings to each other but, you know, it's never more than ... what's the word here? Ephemeral. Yeah, that's it. It's never permanent." I sat quietly for a moment, but I didn't want to be a downer, so I continued. "Ok, I think I've already gone on too long about this. It's really not as bad as I make it seem. I know I'm luckier than the majority of guys. I have incredibly positive interactions with women every day; I believe we do a lot for each other. I should be, and I am, happy about that." He looked back at me, and I had the sense that he understood what I was saying and knew me better now than any of my other friends, even though I hadn't seen him for all these years. In fact, he knew me so well that he knew exactly what to say. "I'll say it again, Mark." He paused significantly. "You're thinking about someone in particular." He was right, of course. And our dinner was going so well that I knew I really wanted to tell him. But still, I wasn't ready to just blurt it out. I had to lead into it. I had to set the scene for him, so he could really understand what she meant to me. "It was 1998," I started off, with a faux-dramatic tone, trying to cover up my feelings with a little forced humor. "We had just had our first child, and I had been transferred to work in our London office for two years." "London?" He said. "That must have been interesting." "It sure was." I told him how London was really a happening place at that time. It still is. It has a reputation for being more open and welcoming to creative types than "ossified" continental Europe. So it drew a lot of young people of all nationalities. "Day-to-day living there was just out of this world. Like, there was this one sandwich shop near my work. You came in and ordered, then watched the girls who worked there make your sandwich. It seemed like they'd all been hired together, because they all looked like East European fashion models, wearing these skin tight black jumpsuits. It was one of my favorite lunch spots, that's for sure. And getting on the bus to go home every night. I mean, there's like a half-dozen women on this bus - a bus, for Christ's sake - who look like those lunch girls." He smiled at me, but frankly, I don't think he could really picture what I was describing. You literally had to be there. "She wasn't a lunch girl," he said. Maybe it was his smile that did it, that I found to be irresistible. But for whatever reason, I told him what, as he said, I hadn't been telling him before. That is, I told him all about her. I guess I should digress here and explain why I was comfortable telling him about her, given that I had only spoken vaguely about her with a few of my closest friends, and those discussions hardly went into details about what I really felt about her. The main reason I was comfortable telling John about her was that, as I said, he had a very charming, disarming manner. His effect on me, after the atmosphere at dinner, the drinks, and seeing his smiling face across the table, was intensified a thousand times compared to what I felt when we spoke earlier on the phone. The fact is, I really wanted to tell him everything. He just had that effect on me. Second, he had of course already confided in me, so I wanted to do the same. This was important to me because, as I said, he was the first man who I had spoken with like this in my entire life. Other men, even my close friends, really wouldn't talk to me about what they felt about women, and the experiences they had. And I don't mean just sexual experiences. The thing is, I really like talking about women and I was excited to hear his story and I wanted to share mine with him. Third, I hadn't had any opportunity to talk about her with anyone in years, so I was just bursting to do so. And I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I was worried that I would never have a better opportunity than this. Which leads to the fourth reason, which was that he was the perfect person for me to share these feelings with - I knew him well enough to be comfortable talking with him, but he was not in my day-to-day life, he didn't know my wife at all, and so forth. So I had no reason to think our conversation would go beyond that table. For all these reasons, I told him all the details about her, and what I felt about her. "No, not a lunch girl," I said. "She was a woman that worked in the office with me, named Elizabeth." He smiled. He could tell just by the way I said her name. He knew. Like most guys, I started with a physical description. "She has these legs. I mean, my God, long beautiful legs; perfect legs." I paused, to let that image sink in, and then continued. "She's about an inch shorter than me, and very thin - no buns at all and barely any breasts. She's sort of pale, and always looked sort of tired, but she has a very pretty face in an almost classical sort of way. I thought she looked a lot like Liz Hurley, except that she was not as ... well, `buxom' would be the word." He smiled. "She has vivid hazel eyes, and pretty, light brown, shoulder length, straight hair." I sort of drifted off, thinking about her, and then I noticed John looking at me. He was almost laughing at the state that just the memory of her had put me in. "Ok," I continued, "I guess you had to be there. I can't describe it precisely, but the amazing thing was that when I would walk around town with her, I mean, I could feel the passing women staring at us. It's like they had this," I paused, looking for the right word. "Well this mixture of fascination and desire. It was unreal." "Ok, I get it, she was pretty," he said. "Right." In fact, that was really all that he needed to know. She was very pretty. And back in 2010, when I was telling John about her, I just didn't have the right point of reference for him. For you, the reader today, I do. She looked a lot like Princess Katherine, the ex-Kate Middleton. Whenever I see the Princess now, I always go into a sort of a swoon, because she's almost exactly what Elizabeth looked like about a dozen years ago. Especially her graceful way of moving, and her long delicate arms. That was what was really beautiful about Elizabeth - she moved like a swan gliding across the water. "But it's more important that I tell you about her personality," I continued to John. "And the best way to do that is to say that she was sort of into men in the same way I'm into women. She had the sexy English accent, in spades, and she's the same age as me - in fact, only about two weeks younger. "When I first started work at that office, it only took her two or three days until she gave me a look I'd never exactly seen before: it literally was like, `Well, hello Sailor!'" He laughed. I think he has seen that look before. More than once, I'm sure. I continued. "So, we would chat for at least a few minutes every day, and we always flirted with each other. And much as I'm comfortable that she liked me and was very attracted to me, I also always knew that there were plenty of attractive guys she liked flirting with. Oh, and by the way, she had a boyfriend, but I won't waste time telling you about him. "We were both really into language and writing, and a lot of our work involved preparing various presentations for clients, so we got into talking about different words. We also talked a lot about politics, that sort of thing. She would always take the artistic/emotional position and I would be the realist. I mean, it was sort of like between Mulder and Scully, if you know what I mean." He nodded. (The reference is to the X-Files, for those of you who don't know.) "Anyway, the day I most remember from those two years with her was the first time we went out to lunch together. Like I said, we had talked all the time, but we had never actually gone out to a sit-down lunch, just the two of us. I remember being nervous asking her, of course, but when I did, I remember she just said, `Sure!' like it was an obvious question. "We went to this neat little Italian restaurant I had walked past a few weeks earlier and sat right down, near the door. I remember thinking that it was perfectly natural that we have lunch, but this felt just a little bit different. I felt a bit more confident and, well, aggressive. Well, to be truly honest, I think I was feeling even more horny than I usually did around her." Ok, maybe that was an odd thing to say to John. I decided just to continue with my description, without looking at his reaction. "So I remember feeling relieved when we started our usual easy conversation. In fact, we talked about some unusually heavy topics ... like religion. "But it didn't take long for the conversation to move on, and we relaxed. There was always a lot of eye contact between us, but no physical contact at all. I mean we literally never touched each other ... sort of as if we were afraid that if we did we'd be unable to control ourselves. The only vaguely physical part of the meal I can remember was when she reached down with her hand and played with the ashtray. I watched her hand closely, of course. "As we got more comfortable, the topic turned to how sexual TV has gotten recently. I remember thinking, `now this is an interesting subject to talk about with her!' I told her about this commercial that was popular at the time, for the Polaroid instant camera." "I think I remember it," John said. It seemed like he was enjoying my story even more than I enjoyed telling it (if that were even possible). "You probably do," I continued. "It's one where the guy's at the office in a really intense meeting, and he gets a phone call he has to take. This is how I described it to Elizabeth. I told her, `We hear a woman's voice say, "Are you coming home for lunch?" and he says, "I don't know honey, it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to get out of here," and she asks, "Have you looked at that envelope I gave you this morning?" and he says, "I just haven't had the chance." "So Elizabeth is enjoying my story. I think she knew what was coming. `So the woman says,' I tell her `"Well, look at it," and the guy pulls an envelope out of his pocket, and then he looks at the Polaroid and his expression reveals, well it reveals that, let's just say, it was a really good picture! He quickly excuses himself from the meeting, and the commercial ends.'" "She liked that?" John asked, smiling at me. "She sure did. She really liked that story. Talk about lame, but there you go. So I kept going on this topic, for a little while, getting just a bit raunchier. I remember finishing with my absolute favorite line. It's from Saturday Night Live, Chevy Chase did it." "Which one's that?" "The government released a new stamp today ... commemorating prostitution in America. It's a ten cent stamp, but if you want to lick it, it's a quarter." I laughed. John did too, but he said, "I'll say it again - you're pathetic." But he was laughing. "Well she liked it!" I said, in mock defense of myself. "I remember she said, `Who write's this kind of stuff?' and I said, `A bunch of guys about 50 years old who look like our clients!' "So, you get the drift of the conversation. But you've got to know, even though we talked and flirted in the office, we had never really had a conversation like that. I mean, I had never told her a dirty joke before. So this was like ... well, it was like nothing I had ever done before." John was still smiling at me. I think he could appreciate what a special memory this was for me. I hope he understood how happy I was just to have had that one opportunity, to have had that lunch with her. "You know what I mean, I think," I continued. "The last thing I'll tell you, maybe this was the best part, was toward the end of our lunch. A group of about 4 or 5 people had finished and were heading for the door. They were of various ages, I remember, and they had to slow down a bit to walk past us and get to the door, and I caught the eye of a girl in the group - young woman, I should say. And I remember, she had this perfect, well, you know, innocent look in her face. And my eye just sparked, I can't help it when I see a girl like that. But I looked away, back down at my plate. Even though I could feel that girl's eyes watching me, I just couldn't bring myself to look back at her with Elizabeth sitting right across the table from me. "But I also noticed that Elizabeth had looked at her too, and held her look for a moment. Then, as soon as they left, she said `Hey Mark, did you see that girl was looking at you with a really intense look.' I didn't really know what to say, but I just shot back `Well, I guess I've still got it!' I remember wanting to change the subject, but she started to smile at me again and I said, `Yes, I noticed, don't think I didn't notice.' Then, when she tried to change the subject, I said to her, `Not bad, huh, she looked about 18 didn't she?' And she replied, `More like 20.'" I laughed. "Ooh," John said, mocking me, "What a put down." "Right," I said, still laughing. "Anyway, all in all, it was a pretty good lunch. I paid for it. I remember because she insisted on taking the check back from the waiter; she said she wanted to take it back to the office and frame it." "Must have been some lunch!" John said. "No, it wasn't that. The joke around the office was that I always insist on paying people back (and being paid!) when we would borrow lunch money or whatever from each other. So, for me to pay for lunch ... well, I guess she knew how I felt about her. "So afterwards, we walked pretty slowly back to the office. I remember that when we got back by the office, she just kept on walking directly away from the office into the park across the street until I called her to turn around. I'll always remember the grin on her face." I was still smiling now, and John was smiling too. Not laughing, just smiling. "We didn't go straight back to the office. We stopped and had coffee at a café right next door. It was her idea. But by then, it had been two hours since we had left, so we had to begin to consider going back to the office. I remember watching her bracelets jangle as she pushed her hair back over her ear." My voice just trailed off. "You've really got it for her bad," he said. I smiled back at him. "Well can you blame me? Look, I don't know if this will sound corny or what, but when we got back to the office we talked with our friends. Another woman had gone to some restaurant nearby where she had happened to see some minor film star. I can't remember who it was, but I remember her saying how he was with a bunch of beautiful people. So I looked at Elizabeth and said, `It looks like we picked the wrong restaurant,' and then I turned and walked out, heading back to my office. "I was a few steps down the hall when I heard her say, loudly for my benefit, `Well, it's ok, I had lunch with a sexy guy today too.'" I just sat there for a moment, thinking back on this scene. I was probably too embarrassed to look at John directly, but when I did he was looking back at me with an expression that seemed to show that he was happy for me, happy that I had had this experience, in the same way that I was happy for him when I heard about his experiences in college. Without us saying anything to each other, my mind sort of wandered through my other memories of Elizabeth, and eventually it settled on another of my fondest and most intense memories of her. I just started talking without trying to explain, and John just listened. "So there was this one day, probably about a week before I was to leave London to return to the US after having been in the office for two years - after having seen her every work day for the past two years. "She had to go out of the office to a meeting, and by that time we would have always gone to a meeting like that together. Even if the other one had absolutely no reason for being there, we would just go. So I remember her `begging' me to go with her, but I had some other commitment and just couldn't do it. Much as I wanted to, of course. "So, to make it up for herself, I guess, she comes into my office and is just idly talking to me and she starts brushing her hair. My office had this huge mirror in it, like the older offices in London would have. Our office was in this funky old building. So anyway, then she starts putting on her lipstick, and I'm just sitting there, looking at her get ready for this meeting. And thinking how incredibly beautiful she is. "And I'm also thinking about how she's going to go downstairs and get in a cab. One of those classic London cabs. And she's going to get in that cab and drive out to the suburbs to the office where the meeting would be. "And I mean, I was ready. I was so ready. I could have just got up from my desk, put my arm around her waist and said, `Come on, let's go.' And she would just look at me, and smile, and we'd go downstairs. We'd get in that cab and start heading to the meeting but we wouldn't stop. We'd just, disappear together, you know. Like in the movies." I sat back in my chair, thinking about this. I looked over at Elizabeth, who'd joined us at the table. She looked at me and just gave a little nod. She'd been thinking the same thing. Then she and Amy smiled at each other, conspiratorially. John was thinking, too. Somehow, he didn't notice Elizabeth and Amy. After a moment, it seemed that he had come to a conclusion about what I had told him. "You know, you think I had all these great experiences, but ... you know, I don't really think that the best pussy I had compares to London with Elizabeth." I just looked at him, and laughed. "We've each had our good fortune," I said. As we were laughing, our waitress brought our dessert order - a slice of chocolate cake and a glass of cognac for each of us. Let me digress here one more time and say that, as John and I each ate the variation on chocolate cake we had ordered, we didn't swoon over it. We didn't say it was the best cake we'd ever had and insist the other person try it. We just ate the damn cake and enjoyed it! When we were halfway through our desserts, John looked up at me and asked, "So did you ever do anything about it?" "What d'you mean?" "You know, with Elizabeth." I thought for a moment. I knew the answer, but I guess what I must have been thinking was whether I wanted to lie, and make something up for him. But for whatever reason, I was comfortable telling him the truth. "No," is all I said. "Oh," he responded. I could tell that he knew I would say more. "I mean, of course I wanted too. But, you know," I paused. "I'm married." "Yeah," he said, and I could tell he understood. I was sure that he'd been through the same thing, one way or the other. After a moment, I decided I would try to explain the real reason she and I never did anything. "I'm sure she wouldn't have liked it if I had." He seem surprised. "Really?" he asked, with a hint of humor in his voice. "No, not that," I said, laughing too. "I mean, I think the reason she liked me was because she knew I wasn't going to do anything about it. That's why she was willing to give me that `Hello, Sailor,' look in the first place, and then do everything else we did." I paused for a moment, thinking back on it, and then decided to mention something else to him. "I heard some stories, though." "Yeah?" he asked. "About what?" "Some she told me, and others I heard around the office - about guys coming on to her." "So?" John seemed curious. I couldn't tell if he thought I was going to spill some juicy details, or what. But I had to disappoint him. "Yeah, well, when you hear the actual stories, about some of the shit she had to put up with, it's pretty - disturbing, I guess. Let's leave it at that. After hearing her talk about it, I was sure that I didn't want to be any part of stuff like that." I paused. "It's not what I wanted to be for her." "Right," he said, and again I knew he understood. "Plus," I continued, trying to lighten the mood, "I don't know about her, but like I said before, I always had the feeling that if we did touch each other, even innocently, we wouldn't have been able to control ourselves." He laughed. "Probably not, from the way you describe it." I laughed too. "But seriously," I said, "it's like we never touched each other at all - never brushed our hands together, or anything." "Hmm," he said, thinking to himself about this. "Well, there was one time." He looked back at me with a smile. And then I knew that there was one more thing I wanted to tell him. It was by far the most intimate, touching moment I had ever shared with a woman, other than my wife. I had never told anyone else about it - I never thought anyone would understand - but as I said, I somehow had the feeling that this would be my one chance to do so. "So it was a Friday," I began cryptically, without any introduction. He put down his fork to listen. I think he knew this was important to me. "My last day in the office; I'd been there for two years but now would be flying back to the US the next day. It was in February, so even though it was only about 5:30, it was dark outside." "I had talked to Elizabeth earlier that day, but in all the hustle and bustle of my last day in the office she had somehow disappeared for the last few hours. I remember that the office had pretty much cleared out -most people were anxious to leave early for the weekend - and it was very quiet as I gathered up my last box of stuff to carry home and walked down the hallway toward the door. When I turned the corner, she was sitting there on a windowsill by the door, bundled up in her coat, but with her long legs stretched out in front of her. `You forgot this,' she said. "I've always remembered those exact words. She was holding one of those little Dictaphone cassette recorders that you could record something for a secretary to transcribe (those were the days!). I had lent it to her one time and never bothered to collect it. But I knew immediately that she wasn't really referring to the recorder, and I understood that she had held it and waited, so that she could give it to me when I was leaving the office and we could be alone. "I don't remember exactly what I said to her, but I smiled, took the recorder from her and dropped it in my box. Then I opened the door and followed her out of the office. Our office was on the fifth floor, so although there was an elevator we usually preferred to walk down the beautiful wooden staircase in our building. "Really, John, I just can't bring myself to tell you what we talked about as we walked down the stairs, except to say it was about how we would miss each other. I told her that she would be fine, and that she would be able to put up with all the aggravations of work even though I wouldn't be there anymore." I paused for a moment, thinking back to walking down those stairs with her. John was looking at me without much expression, as if he were simply waiting for me to go on. "When we got about halfway down the stairs," I continued, "she started crying softly to herself, and honestly I have to say it was one of the most emotional moments in my life. I know that sounds unbelievably cheesy but you've gotta understand that it was all just very powerful. "So we got out onto the street in front of the building and I remember it was rather cold and really busy as people hurried by on their way home from work. We both just stopped and looked at each other, and then I went to hug her just like you would hug a friend goodbye. But I remember that she really grabbed me tightly and put her head right up next to mine, and I understood that she not only didn't want to let me go, but she didn't want me to see that she was crying. "I felt like I could stand in that street and let her hold on to me for as long as she wanted, but eventually she took a deep breath and released me. We looked at each other again, and said goodbye, and then I just turned and walked away. To this day, I still feel very weird about that. I mean, I don't know why I just walked away, without turning around to look at her again. I remember distinctly that I started to think about all the things I still needed to do that evening, to get ready to leave the next day, but for the life of me I can't understand why I didn't turn around to look at her. And so, I'll never know what she did as I walked away. Maybe she just turned and left too." We both sat quietly for a minute. I was so preoccupied replaying the scene in my head that I didn't notice John's reaction. Eventually, he broke the silence. "Did you ever see her again?" "Oh sure," I replied brightly. "I called her soon after I returned to the States, and we continued to talk on the phone every once in a while. Since we worked for the same company, all I had to do was dial her extension and she'd be there. But you know, it was different without seeing her in the hallway, or getting coffee together in the kitchen. And it just sorta faded away. "I did see her again though. About two years after I left, I returned for a visit to London, but we only talked for a few minutes in the office, and we didn't go for lunch or anything. I didn't get the feeling that she was mad at me, but I could tell that she didn't want to get too close. I suspect that she didn't want to go through the same goodbye as last time, and maybe I didn't either. I don't know ..." My voice trailed off, and I guess John realized I didn't have much more to say. "So?" he asked. "Yeah," I said, conveying finality with my tone of voice, rather than in what I said. "So we went from occasional phone calls to a few emails. She never really seemed to like email. And then a few years ago I heard that she left the company without leaving any kind of goodbye email or contact information. Maybe something happened in the office. I never heard anything. So that's it; she's kind of dropped out as far as I know. I don't know what she's up to or even exactly where she is." Even though all this made me a little sad, I remember John was smiling at me as if he knew there was something else. "But that's not all?" I couldn't help smiling back at him; he had such a conspiratorial look on his face, and I sensed that he had had the same sort of experience with a woman (or women), and he knew what I was thinking. "No, it's not all," I said with a little laugh. "I still think about her all the time." He knew I needed only a slight prompt to continue. "Like?" he asked. "Like when I saw Lost in Translation." He smiled at me; he knew. "I mean come on," I said, laughing again. I was happy now. "That movie is perfect. It speaks to me, you know? "It came out a few years after I returned from London, and I mean it was like that was everything with Elizabeth, right there up on the screen. Sure, they had the whole age difference thing going on, which wasn't the case for us, and Scarlett Johansson is a curvy blonde and Elizabeth is a skinny brunette, but otherwise it was exactly the same. I knew exactly what they were thinking all through the movie." John looked at me with the same bemused smile as when I had begun our dinner with a rant about ordering food. He could tell this was something I had given a lot of thought to. He just sat back and let me continue. "So when they get to that last scene, where they're saying goodbye on the street, I'm like `Oh my god, that's exactly right. That's perfect. That's exactly the way it was!' And I was so happy because I knew that someone had gone through exactly what we had gone through. I mean, I don't think that what Elizabeth and I had was so unusual, and seeing it again on screen and knowing other people had done the same thing made me so happy." "So if you knew everything about that," John concluded, "you must know what he said to her." (He was referring to how you don't know what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett at the end of the movie.) I smiled. "Oh yeah, I know." "So what was it?" John asked, almost like he was testing to see if I was really telling the truth. But I wasn't going to fall into his trap. "Oh no," I laughed, "that was for her ears only. I could never tell anyone else." He knew I was right, of course, and he laughed with me. It had been quite an evening. Our waitress came to take our dessert plates; we were still sipping our cognac. I think it was clear they would have to kick us out, and they weren't closing up yet. We weren't anxious to go anywhere. After John and I sat silently for a few moments, each of us lost in our own thoughts, it seemed that John had reached a conclusion. "I guess I can understand the way you felt about Elizabeth, and why you didn't do anything about it. I mean, in some ways what you had sounds about perfect. All the desire, but none of the responsibility, right?" He paused. "That's the way I look at it." "Now you're thinking of someone in particular," I said, enjoying teasing him the way he had teased me before. "Well, I guess I can say I've had my opportunities." He paused, and I thought he was going to say more, but then he seemed to rearrange his thoughts before he continued. "But never with anyone like Elizabeth, so it didn't work out the same way for me." As I listened to him, I thought to myself that maybe each of us had been lucky with women in different ways. After another pause, he said, "You know what I think?" "What?" "Now maybe this is my turn to sound weird, but I guess what keeps me in check is that I don't want another wife." He seemed to be waiting for my reaction. This may seem, to you the reader, like a strange thing for him to say, but sitting at the table there with him, I knew exactly what he meant, so I said, "I know; that's what I think too. Like when I hear about a guy who left his wife and married another woman - even someone younger and sexier, whatever - I think to myself, `What's the point of that? Why go through so much emotional hassle just to trade one woman for another?' It doesn't make sense to me." After a moment, John replied, almost as if he were talking to himself, "Yeah, if I was going to do that, I'd want it to be with someone completely different from my wife." Then he paused, as if considering this further, and said, "Until that person comes along, I don't think it's gonna happen, so I don't think about it." Just as he said this, Lisa approached us with the check. "I'll just leave this for you gentlemen. I'm clocking out now, but you can stay as long as you'd like. It's been a pleasure serving you." John turned and smiled at her. "The pleasure's been all ours, Lisa." She looked back and forth at each of us and then seemed emboldened to say something. "I hope you don't mind," she began, "but I did notice that you two have had a very pleasant evening. I hope it was a nice reunion." We both looked at her with pleased, but inquisitive, expressions. "Angie told me." "Aha," I said, understanding. "Well, thank you. It was very nice." I looked at John for a second, and then back at her. "Thank you for making it especially nice for us." "As I said, my pleasure," she replied, with that tone of ineffable femininity in her voice, and she turned to walk away. We watched her depart for the last time. Then, John reached over to have a look at the check. He laughed at what he saw, then looked up at me and said, "Know what? Forget everything I just said. There might not be a need to wait any longer." He handed me the check, and I couldn't resist looking at it, wondering what had elicited this reaction from him. When I looked down at the little note that Lisa had written in a flowing script at the bottom of the check, as waitresses often do, I immediately understood John's reaction. "Thanks! Please come again soon. We look forward to serving both of you again." She had underlined "We" and "both," and signed it, "Lisa and Angie" - and added a phone number beneath the signature. As I said, we both laughed, but it was pride we both felt. I realized it was the same pride I felt when that girl had looked at me when I was having lunch with Elizabeth. But this time, it felt even better to be sharing that feeling with John. "I'll need to save this for my receipts," John said, as he put it in his pocket. I was happy to let him have it as a souvenir. After all, his corporate apartment is only a few blocks away. After talking a few more minutes, we settled our bill and left. It was a pleasant summer night as we stood on the sidewalk around midnight. There were still a few people on the street, exiting the various bars and restaurants in the neighborhood. It was only two blocks up Tryon and over to the condo on Trade Street where John was staying. I walked over with him. It was a quiet walk. We talked about how much Charlotte had changed since I moved there 16 years before. During that time, I'd seen the boom arrive, peak and then fade into more difficult times. It seemed to me we were both thinking about how much had happened since we'd last seen each other, and I felt like it was something else we could share - sort of a feeling of having seen it all, and now each of us being comfortable with (if not resigned to) where we had landed. When we got to his building, we stood there on the street, talking a few more minutes. Neither of us wanted to go. Finally, I shook his hand, then he placed his hand on my shoulder, and we hugged. I did have the guts to pull him tight. I wouldn't want to miss that opportunity. After a moment we separated. "It was good seeing you," he said. "You too, John." "I'll be here for a while, and I don't know much about Charlotte, so let's get together." "Sure thing. Just let me get through the rest of this week. My wife's going back to see her parents with the kids this weekend. I'll be free next week." "Sounds good. I'll see you then." He paused. "Bye." "Bye," I said, and finally I turned to walk away. After a dozen steps, I turned around, and saw that he was looking at me. That made me very happy. I smiled, gave a little wave, and he turned to walk into his building. I watched him walk away, which made me even happier. * * * I have to digress here for a moment, and explain that even though I remember that evening very well, I can't say that I've accurately recounted our conversation word for word. I definitely remember all the topics we talked about, and the little interactions with our waitress and things like that stick in my mind. But I'm sure I've embellished a little and I've made our discussion more organized than it actually was. I've tried to get the tone and the topics right, but this is my memory of the evening, more than the evening itself. Also, I left out other things John and I talked about, as our conversation wandered here and there. For example, one of my favorite parts of the evening was when we got started talking about our favorite hot actresses. It was tons of fun and something I've never really talked about with a guy. His tastes run a little more blonde and perky than mine; he really likes the Kirsten Dunst, Elisha Cuthbert and Alicia Silverstone type. Nothing wrong with that, and in fact I enjoyed picturing him with the three of them while he talked about them. Although I said that I don't really limit myself to a "type" of woman, Laetitia Casta will always be special to me, and I definitely have a preference for brunettes like Elizabeth Hurley, Keira Knightly and Evangeline Lilly; I was also more open to an older woman than he was. He mentioned, too, that he had been to Charlotte before. About two years earlier he'd had a similar assignment, working near the airport for a few weeks. He told me that he had thought about calling me, but just hadn't. "I understand," I said, and I hoped he could hear the sympathy in my voice. We also talked about our workout routines. He goes to the gym every once in a while, but he told me that he mainly keeps in shape by swimming in an adult league, and he has a pool in his back yard, so I was reminded again that swimming sure works to keep one's body in perfect form - at least for him! In response, I was eager to tell him that I had installed an Endless Pool in my home, and he was excited to hear about it. For those of you that don't know, an Endless Pool has a small motor in one end that creates a current you can swim against like a treadmill. The pool itself is not too big (14 by 7 feet, and 3 feet deep) so it can be put easily in your basement or whatever. "I bike to work sometimes, and go for a run occasionally, but that's my main form of exercise," I told him. As I said that, I remember wondering to myself if I was doing something wrong, because it didn't seem to me that I was getting the same results from swimming that John was! "It must be hard to keep yourself in place," he said. "I've seen that online, and I even thought about getting one, but it seems like you'd be pushed all around by the current." "Oh no, it's not a problem. It only takes a few minutes to get used to it, and then you're just swimming without thinking about it. The cool thing is that you can swim continuously without having to turn. I never did learn how to do a proper kick turn. And whenever you get tired you just drop to your knee for a minute and then start up again." "Cool," he said. "So you can just go swimming whenever you want?" "Yep, just head down to the basement. It's built into the porch we have out back and enclosed by a room we added to the house." We smiled at each other. I remember feeling so comfortable talking to him, in a way that I've never felt with a guy before. It was as if I didn't need to explain anything to him; I could just say what I was thinking and he would understand, and it was the same for what he told me. It was a great evening, no about that. We exchanged all our contact information (work, home, cell) and it was obvious to me that I would enjoy spending time with him while he was in town. That's what I was thinking as I walked back from his building toward my office to get my car. 2