The Reunion Ch. 01-04

"I'm gay."

Tanya's face registered astonishment, then she smiled.

"I can relate," Tanya said with sincerity.

"I know. I haven't even told anyone except Mark. My kids don't even know. Do you have children?"

"I do. I have three grown children."

"If you don't mind telling me, how did you let them know?"

"No, I don't mind. Especially if it'll help you. I told them at a family dinner. I told them that I suspected as much for many years but didn't really deal with my feelings until they were grown and out of the house. Fortunately my children were very understanding. I couldn't say the same for all of my friends or my parents. Some of my friends never spoke to me again."

We ended up having a long conversation that went far past the end of lunch. Patricia, Tanya and I talked until the banquet staff kicked us out of the room. We exchanged numbers, promised to stay in touch, and then hugged. I couldn't believe how good it felt after that lunch, to share my secret with someone else and to hear that her children were understanding. It was as if a great weight was lifted off my shoulders.

I ran into Mark in the hotel lobby and shared my experience with Tanya and Patricia. He broke into a big smile. "Are you glad you came to the reunion?"

"More than you'll ever know."

I went back to my room with a bottle of chardonnay I purchased from the hotel gift shop. I drew a hot bath and reflected on my conversation with Tanya and Patricia. I knew it was all going to work out. The two glasses of wine (or was it three?) made me excited to attend dinner that night. I put on the dress and shoes I bought with Mark and was ready to party.

The dinner was fantastic. We invited all of our former teachers and a number of them attended this event. We had speeches from the former principal and assistant principal and then a mixer with an open bar. I queued up to refresh my drink when a voice from the past came from behind.

"Hey girlfriend, can I buy you a drink?" I knew that sultry voice. It was Sharon. I turned around to see her. I saw full dark eyebrows, dark green eyeshadow and eyeliner, long full eyelashes and aquamarine eyes. As she stepped back from me I was able to see all of her. Much taller than me, slender, with firm breasts. She was wearing a blouse unbuttoned to show significant cleavage, designer jeans and hand tooled burgundy cowboy boots. I could feel my heartbeat in my fingertips.

I stared at her speechless. Something buried deep within the recesses of my mind was bubbling to the surface. She quipped, "Cat got your tongue?"

"Hello Sharon," I squeaked.

The tall brunette held her arms out wide. "That's it? No hug?"

I finally snapped back into the present. I gave her a big hug. Her scent and her lithe body pressed to mine brought back the memory I was attempting to retrieve. It was the summer after graduation. My parents were away for the weekend. We raided my parents' liquor cabinet and got uproariously drunk. In a moment of clarity I looked at her and she looked at me. We kissed lightly and then again deeply, her tongue seeking mine. I felt my loins tighten as we explored each other's tongues, dipping and dancing as my curiosity turned into an aching longing. But the experiment was over far too soon. Sharon broke it off and laughed off the kiss as a casual dalliance. Now she was in front of me and I felt that same tightening.

We got our drinks (she paid) and we found an empty table to catch up. Before we sat down Sharon said "Turn around." I did. She was impressed. "Beth, I don't remember you looking this good." The compliment gave me a warm glow through my body. "And the dress and shoes are amazing." I guess that's what $1,700 hard earned dollars (some of it Mark's) will buy you.

We sat down and started on our drinks.

"It's been about twenty years ..." Sharon said wistfully.

"Yes," I replied. "A lot of water has gone under the bridge. My marriage, two kids, and then Jonathan's passing ..." as my voice trailed off. "But what about you? I lost touch with you sometime after you moved to New York."

"I got a job with a fashion design shop in Manhattan and worked my way up to a managerial position. Right now I'm managing their operations in New York and Paris."

"Wow. That sounds exotic and exciting."

"It is, but ..."

"But what?"

"It doesn't leave me a lot of time for a relationship."

"So there are no men in your life?"

Sharon glared at me.

She continued, "Really? There have never been any men in my life, only women."

Ohhhh. I should have seen that coming. "When did you come out?"

"Shortly after I moved to New York."

I then summoned the courage to address one of the elephants in the room. "Why did you choose to break contact with me after you moved to New York?"

Her face showed a longstanding hurt. "You don't know?"

I was at a complete loss. "Sharon, I don't."

There was a long pause. She finally took my hand in hers and looked at me with those aquamarine eyes. I felt myself succumbing to her. She leaned forward, and just like that moment 25 years ago, there was that same feeling between us.

We kissed. It was a chaste kiss at first as our lips touched. I could taste the vodka on her lips as I felt them slowly part. My tongue raced to meet hers, whirling and caressing one another in a kiss I had only fantasized about. I was so moved I forgot to concentrate on breathing, and momentarily had to break the kiss to catch my breath.

She looked deeply into my eyes, her eyes shimmering with a thin gloss of tears.

Then she whispered into my ear, "It was always you."

Her whisper might has well have been a lightning bolt. I didn't know. I didn't read the telltale signs when we were teenagers that she was in love with me. I remembered that we kissed and that she laughed it off. I now know that I had completely misread her signals to me and that the laugh wasn't her telling me it was nothing. Her laugh indicated that she was nervous about revealing to me her true feelings that she was madly in love with me. My God. I went to this reunion worried about the wrong things. I wasn't going to the reunion to float a trial balloon about my sexuality. I was going to the reunion to reunite with the love of my life.

Of course. I was in love with Sharon when I was in high school. But what tools did I have to read those signs? I knew that good girls were not into girls so how was I to know the signs that I was in love with a girl? And now the love of my life was sitting right in front of me.

I confessed all of this to Sharon. Every excruciating detail. She listened and nodded, but not in a negative way. She said that she understood what motivated my actions. She was raised the same way I was. But somehow she was able to fight through the noise and the lies about human sexuality and figure out that she loved women and not men. But when we were in high school how could she convince her best friend that they were in love with each other? Could she possibly overrule her best friend's parents, who were so intolerant of Mark's revelation that he was gay? That's why she decided to take a job in New York. She didn't see any possible way she could win.

When Sharon heard that I had gotten engaged, it confirmed to her that I had not figured it out and had given in in to my family. She was right. I lived a lie and waited until my 25th high school reunion to confirm what I should have known back then.

Sharon got up and pulled me by the hand. We walked hand in hand through a crowded reunion ballroom, the music blaring and the hundreds of conversations raising the sound level to a dull roar. But we heard none of it. And we didn't see the many people staring openly or discreetly while we walked through the middle of the room. We got to the elevator lobby and used her key card to access her floor. We went to her room and entered, still without another word exchanged between the two of us.

The door shut behind us. She pinned me against the back of the door. Now the desperation and want of 25 years welled to the surface. We kissed frantically and passionately. She put her hand inside my dress, only to find my bodysuit underneath that formed a protective cocoon over my body. I took my dress off and peeled my undergarment off. Now I was clad only in my bra and panties. Sharon had done likewise.

She looked at me up and down. "You're beautiful."

"That was my line," I replied.

"I want you," she said breathlessly.

We collapsed together on the bed. Her long delicate fingers snaked behind me to unclasp my bra and then pull off my panties. As she flung my undergarments on the floor her lips found my nipple. She sucked hungrily, longingly, again a desperate love, so long locked away in a corner of her heart now to be unleashed in a fury as she then kissed downward to my sex, now puffy and wet with arousal. Her skillful tongue parted the lips and probed deeper, gyrating within me in a way no man was able to do, escalating me to a height of pleasure that was unknown to me. Her eyes latched on to mine, silently confirming and sealing the emotional connection between the two of us.

It was so much better than I could have imagined. I had been waiting 25 years for a woman to make love to me. Sharon had waited those 25 long years to be that woman.

I was gripping, almost tearing the sheets on the bed, as the agonizingly slow ascent to my release was led by her tongue. I gripped my thighs against her head, calling her name over and over as the pleasure overwhelmed my senses. Finally, the dam burst, and the emotions that had been pent up for 25 years spilled to the surface. I was sobbing uncontrollably, breathing irregularly, wholly incapable of harnessing my emotions or my body as if I were demonically possessed. Sharon stroked my hair, whispering my name, contented, as my sobbing subsided.

Then for reasons I couldn't fathom, I looked at her and her stunning eyes, pouty lips and full womanly breasts and felt a surge of primal lust. I wanted to consume her. She saw the lust in my eyes and laid back on the bed, willingly spreading her legs wide open for me. I threw myself on top of her, feverishly kissing her lips and then her neck. Her scent was captivating, again bringing back the memories of that day 25 years ago where her scent was indelibly imprinted in my mind and on my soul. I went into uncharted waters, caressing and then licking her erect nipples, pulling each of them between my teeth and eliciting a throaty moan from her as my reward.

Her need now became the driving force as her hands pushed my head lower to her smooth freshly shaved pubic patch, the dew on her petals waiting for my mouth to taste, whetting my appetite for what lay beyond. She used her fingers to part her petals, inviting my tongue to enter. The earthy, musky scent of her womanhood surrounded me as I licked and sucked on her sex. Her fingers now focused on her clitoris, stroking it in time with my tongue, her head now being thrown back and forth and her hips rising off the bed. I wet my finger in my mouth and used it to trace around her anus, causing her to cry out, her back now arched and taut and her thighs quivering. Soon my mouth and my tongue received the fruits of their efforts, a copious discharge of sticky sweet fluids as Sharon called to the heavens.

The desperation gave way to contentment as we held each other tightly, uncaring that we were now sweaty and sticky with the product of our union.

As we stared in each other's eyes, satiated for the moment, I uttered the words that took 25 years to bubble up to my lips.

"I love you."

Chapter Four

It was two days in Toledo, but those two days brought closure to the last 25 years of my life. I had resolved to move to New York to be with Sharon. There would be a lot of explaining to do at home, as well as packing away my former life into cardboard boxes. I told Mark I would meet him at the airport departing gate because I had other matters to attend to.

My last few hours with Sharon were blissful. After spending the entire night making love we talked about our future together - where we would live in New York (her current apartment was too small for the two of us), the logistics of my move, and what I would tell my family and friends. The latter was the most challenging, as we both concluded my parents would likely disown me. I truly dreaded that conversation.

Work would prove to be the easiest hurdle. My employer's headquarters was located in Manhattan so a transfer there would likely be easy.

We were still talking a mile a minute, catching up on 25 years worth of news, when my phone alarm went off telling me that I had to get ready to go to the airport. There were plenty of tears as I packed my bags, but we vowed my absence would be short. I would make good on that promise.

My trip to the airport was uneventful and I spotted Mark in the boarding line. I boarded the plane with Mark, holding his hand tightly in mine. We found our adjoining seats and immediately began the debrief.

"We have a lot of catching up to do," I told him.

"I can't wait."

"I'm in love with Sharon."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"She told me 25 years ago. Besides it was pretty obvious to everyone except you. You and Sharon were inseparable for three years. I could see how she looked at you and you at her. It wasn't a teenage infatuation. It was love."

"Why didn't you tell me back then?"

"Would you have listened to me? You couldn't figure it out for yourself. You heeded your parents and shut me out of your house after I came out. Do you really think what I said would have made a difference?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess not."

But then it occurred to me, "Why didn't you tell me before the reunion?"

"Because I wanted you to realize it for yourself."

Then the light bulb went on. "It was you."

"What do you mean it was me?"

"You arranged to have Sharon come to the reunion. You coerced me into going. You brought us together."

Mark spread his hands wide, palms up with his eyebrows raised. "Guilty as charged. I called Sharon two months ago. Then I just had to convince you to come."

"I knew you were my best friend."

"I am and will always be. I hope you enjoy your new life with Sharon."

"I will Mark, I will."

Exhausted, I fell asleep in my seat with a broad smile on my face.