Emotional Healing

Sue had tried to prepare herself for the trip to California as best as possible, especially emotionally. She had packed the night before, and now she waited expectantly for the taxi to arrive as the early morning sun started to rise.

This was her first trip on her own in over a year. She had an 8am flight from Syracuse to Chicago, with a brief lay over there, and then straight on to LA. Soon, she would be in Malibu and at Tom's new beach house later that afternoon. She would be with John's best friends, Mike, Tom, Rick, Jim and Fred, and she would participate for the first time in their corporation's business matters. She suddenly felt alive and somewhat confident, for the first time in over a year.

Her parents had taken her two girls last evening and they were looking forward to spending several days with them. Her two girls had grown quite a bit in the past year. She knew that if John were now alive, he would be very proud of them.

She was going to be on her own in a new, far away place for the first time since John's passing a little over a year ago. She was very nervous, but excited at the same time. The butterflies in her belly, fluttered.

Last week she had closed up the camp for the season. The summer had gone so fast on Long Lake, and it was hard for her to believe that her girls were already back in school. The girls had enjoyed themselves so much there that summer, and so had she. The time they had spent there had been so peaceful, so relaxing and so emotionally therapeutic. She had always dreamed of spending an entire summer at a camp on a lake in the Adirondacks. John and her had always rented a camp for a week or two there most summers, but always, at the end of their short vacation, they had to come back to return to work. They could not afford to stay there any longer. They had both always dreamed of owning their own camp and being able to stay there the entire summer.

She thought, "The dream had come true for me, but not for John."

After John's death, the corporation he had started with his five best friends grew rapidly. The insurance money came in and now she lived the dream they had once wished for. Sue felt sad that John couldn't be here to share this time with her.

She had sold the house in town. It had too many memories, which hindered her from carrying on with her life. After John had passed, she sank into a deep depression that lasted several months. One night while sleeping, she had a dream about John. In the dream, John told her it was time to carry on with her life and that it was okay to always love him, but it was alright to enjoy life and their children.

She had neglected herself and the girls during those first selfish months of grief. In her dream he told her to sell the house and start a new life. He told her that the house and its memories were dragging her down, keeping her depressed.

She bought some land, not far from town and had a new house built there. After she moved into the new house, she immediately felt better for it. She slowly started to entertain a little, and do more with her girls.

Although she had not seen anyone special or dated, since John's passing, she now knew that if someone special did come along, it would be all right to date.

It had taken her a long time to feel this way again. Even though John would always have a big place in her heart, she decided that she would live her life, and would gladly take whatever came her way. Be it good, or be it bad. That was life, and the sooner she believed that, only then could she truly live.

She had read in a book somewhere, that the time that each one is given is truly special. To be savored like a fine vintage wine, and not squandered with prolonged grief, remorse, envy, jealousy, or hate. She decided to live her life like the words she had read in the book.

She knew that John would always be with her, looking after her, guiding her, and approving. She also knew that her spirit had matured a lot in the past year, but mostly in the past few months.

********************

At the airline check-in desk was a young handsome man. He asked to see her ticket and he gave her a boarding pass.

"Have a good flight, Miss Korbe."

She snapped back at him, "That's, Mrs. Korbe!"

She paused, thought for a second and smiled, and then she turned back to the man and said, "I'm sorry ...thank you very much."

As she walked down the gangway towards the plane, the handsome man continued to look at her. His eyes were glued to her butt. Sue suddenly felt his eyes on her and she knew that he was staring at her. She felt a twinge of embarrassment, yet at the same time she felt suddenly sexy and alive, for the first time in a very long while.

She almost enjoyed the feeling of knowing that a handsome man was still interested in her, and found her attractive. She also knew that if John were here he would say, "Suzzie, he's looking at your cute little ass."

John had not been a jealous man. In fact, he had been quite proud of her beautiful figure. When other men used to look at her, it gave him pleasure, but she had never given him any reason to be jealous. She had always been a devoted wife to him. John had been her high school sweetheart, and the man of her dreams.

Sue was five feet ten inches tall, and had long slender legs. In the flattering low cut blue dshort dress she wore, she was shown in all of her splendid beauty. She was the same weight as she was in high school. One hundred and twenty pounds. Her breasts were not overly large, but they weren't small either, but still very firm. Her figure was statuesque. Her golden blonde hair radiated. She was indeed a handsome woman of thirty-two and still in her prime. She was wealthy, beautiful, healthy in body and mind, and she was single.

* * *

She arrived at Tom's California house at 4pm Pacific Time. She had reset her watch during the taxi ride to Tom's. She was impressed at the beauty of Tom's huge house.

A moment after the taxi arrived, Mike came out to greet her. Mike paid the cab driver and picked up her bags. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and hugged her.

He said, "Follow me, pretty little girl, into the den of iniquity."

Sue laughed, and so did Mike. She thought about Mike and John. How they had been best friends and had shared so many wonderful times together at Fred's dilapidated camp in the Adirondacks. Even thought it was run down and in need of immediate repair, John always shared wonderful memories of it and his time spent there with the rest of the gang to her. It was a place that John and his five best friends went to occasionally on summer weekends, to relax, let down their hair, and party a little.

"It's really good to see you again, Sue, ...we've all missed you."

"I've missed you too, and the rest of the old gang."

"You look great Sue. How are you doing?"

"I feel alive, for the first time in many months, Mike."

"Lucky for me, your room is next to mine. So if you know what's good for you little girl, you'll keep your door good and locked."

"Is that the talk of a happily married man?"

"I thought you knew, Sue? I'm divorced now. After the money came in from the corporation, the problems didn't resolve. I guess the old saying is true. Money doesn't buy happiness, nor does it solve problems. Sometimes, it only magnifies them."

"I'm sorry Mike, I really didn't know. I've read bits and pieces about your new career, but I didn't know about the divorce."

"Don't be sorry, Sue. I've tried my best to keep all that baggage out of the press. It had been coming for quite a few years. I was just too blind, or ignorant, to see it coming. It's been several months, and I've finally started putting the pieces of my life back together."

"To change the subject, how do you like Washington, Mike?"

"Can't complain, Sue. The foundation I founded a few months ago is really starting to take off. We're starting to make a little progress in the field of human rights. We're getting great press lately, and the contributions are starting to come in. Besides, coming into five million dollars last year from the corporation, and having nothing better to do with it, would have been rather boring ...don't you think?"

"I read somewhere, you're really starting to impress the right people, and all the pretty young women. I've even read that some women's group wants you to run for President."

"They just want me for my body, Sue. I guess it's just my dashing good looks, and charisma. Couldn't be the money ...could it?"

They both laughed.

"Enough about me Sue, after you've unpacked, put on your prettiest swimsuit and come out back to the pool. Tom and Fred are there, waiting to see you. Jim and Rick will be here tomorrow."

"It's a date, Mike. My first one in over a year," she said as she chuckled.

Mike showed Sue to her bedroom. After she went inside, he just stood outside her bedroom door for a few minutes, thinking.

"I never realized just how beautiful Sue was. I always thought of her as John's wife. She is a captivating woman, in her prime."

He continued to think. "If my best friend John were here now, he would punch me in the mouth for what I'm thinking, and I wouldn't blame him a bit."

Mike walked out back to the pool and informed Tom and Fred that Sue had arrived.

Sue unpacked and undressed. She put on her sexiest and most flattering swimsuit and thought about John's wonderful friends. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirrors and thought, "what the hell," and she went out to the pool area.

Tom and Fred each greeted Sue with a hug and a kiss. One could notice the slight embarrassment in their faces. Sue looked gorgeous, and extremely sexy, in that cute swim suit.

Sue asked the bartender near the pool for a Malibu Bay Breeze, and then said to everyone, "When in Rome".

All of them proceeded to talk and enjoy themselves in the beautiful California sunshine filled late afternoon. Mostly they talked about John. Each of them had wonderful stories about him to share.

Sue felt completely at ease with John's friends. She could feel John in them. When she was with them, she felt like she was with John again. They treated her like a little sister.

* * *

Later that evening after supper, as Sue went to her bedroom at Tom's for the evening, she felt completely and naturally at ease with herself. She earnestly looked forward to tomorrow's meeting at the corporation John and his five best friends had started last year before his passing. She no longer had any doubts about her performance in the business matters that lay ahead.

She felt a complete trust in Tom's managing of the corporation, and with John's friends and business partners. She knew that what they were doing was some how greater than her, or the six of them. She would listen to all that was presented, and would vote her conscience.

Sue undressed, put on a robe and went to the bathroom to shower. She brushed her beautiful long hair, put it up in a bun and put on a shower cap. She removed her long thick body length robe. As she looked in the long full-length mirrors on the shower doors, she stopped and stared for a while. She was in perfect shape, and she suddenly felt proud of her beauty. She ate correctly and exercised regularly. She really tried hard to take care of herself. She had not thought of herself as being attractive or sexy, in quite some time. Up until the last few months, she had been completely obsessed with grief and self-pity.

Sue, while standing in front of the mirrors, started to touch her body. Starting at the shoulders and neck. Then she felt her face, arms and stomach. She had long since forgotten how sensuous touch felt on her body, and how completely natural and beautiful the touch of her soft skin felt.

Her hand slowly brushed across one of her perfectly shaped breasts. As her hand softly brushed across the nipple, it stiffened and proceeded to harden. Sue shuddered, and got goose bumps all over her body at the sensuous sensations being produced by the feel of her lightly touching it. She lifted her other hand to her other breast and began to softly touch it also.

She watched in the mirrors as her well manicured fingers ever so gently caressed her beautiful body. She had long since forgotten what the beautiful sensations felt like, that she was now feeling throughout her body. She lowered her left hand to her perfectly trimmed pubic area, and she explored the recently unfamiliar feelings being produced in her body. Her breathing slowly became heavier and she took shorter and faster breaths. After awhile, as her first orgasm in over a year, gripped and encompassed her entire body, the waves of grief, loneliness and self pity, that had stored itself up in her mind, flooded out, cleansing and clearing her soul, never to return. As if her body had been purged, she felt complete and finally clean. Not from the orgasm itself, but from the emotional healing of the past several months. This was just the culmination of that long and slow process.

She just stood there for a long time afterward, continuing to blankly stare in the mirrors at herself. She could not move, as if her feet were attached to the floor beneath her. Finally, after several moments, she opened the shower door and stepped into the shower. She showered for a very long time, as if she were cleaning herself of more than the day's perspiration. All the while, she enjoyed the sensation of the water caressing her flesh.

She removed the hand held shower massager from its bracket above her head and turned it on the gentle setting, and slowly massaged her neck, shoulders, back and breasts.

Sue was now at peace with herself, and with the world. As she lowered the hand held massager between her shapely thighs, the feelings she had felt just a few moments ago, rekindled, but this time with much greater intensity.

She turned the massager to the high setting and began to slowly orgasm again. The beautiful muffled sounds that came out of her mouth were ones of self-awareness and self-assuredness.

During those brief moments of release, she was convinced that she felt John's presence with her. As if she heard in her mind, John's familiar voice saying, "How beautiful!"

A tear slowly descended down her left cheek.

"Thank you for such wonderful memories, John...

I'll always love you!"

**********