Wasted Years Ch. 02

At the end of "Wasted Years" the older gentleman and the much younger woman had finally fallen asleep in a huge hammock outside their cottage, following a night of festive dining and drinking. The author strongly suggests that you read the first segment before this one.

Decades of habit caused my eyes to open with the first rays of the sun. You were lying next to me, one arm casually draped across my chest. The dawn was just beginning, radiating a red-orange glow, which highlighted your incredible beauty. You had managed to slip out of your swimsuit and into a tee shirt and bikini panties before collapsing into the hammock beside me, and I felt enormously blessed to have this moment of quiet time to simply watch your breath move within you. The graceful curve of your neck, even more beautiful in sleep, caused me to catch my breath. Through the sheerness of your nylon panties, the warm dark brown nest was discernible, and I felt my manhood leap with the desire you had engendered in me for so many years. So damn many years...

It was a warm July evening in Central Florida, and I was somewhat excited to be pursuing my hobby, amateur theater. Tonight was audition night for a Western-themed musical comedy and my friends and I were looking forward to seeing the cast come together.

I was one of the first to arrive, and was chatting with the director and musical director as others trailed in. Most were men and women I had worked with in the past, and we exchanged pleasantries and discussed the upcoming show.

A few minutes before the scheduled start of auditions, a young woman walked into the theater and into my life. Neither our small-town theater nor my life would ever be the same. I will rely on cliché, as there is no other way to accurately describe the moment -- her presence simply electrified the crowd. She was the unknown in the crowd, but had no hesitation as she greeted one and all with her huge dazzling smile and a firm handshake. She came up to me and said her name, reaching for my hand. I responded with my name and she stopped- almost froze- and stared into my eyes.

"Oh my God, do you feel that?" Her mouth opened slightly as in amazement, as she put the strange question to me.

And then, as on cue, I did indeed feel a charge of energy go through me. While it wasn't really physical, it was like a low-level electric shock. It was in her eyes, in her smile and in the fingers of the hand that finally took mine and held it. We said nothing, but the handshake became a hug and the embrace lasted either a second or a lifetime- I'm not sure which.

At that moment, the musical director, who was watching the strange encounter, called for singing auditions to begin and asked me to start. Handing my sheet music to the pianist, I took center stage and sang a rousing song from Oklahoma. I finished and was descending from the stage when my new friend intercepted me and held me so tightly. "Thank you" she said. "How did you know that was my favorite song from childhood? Please wait right here for me." With that, she pushed me into a seat, and, with an amazing million kilowatt smile, took the stage for her audition.

I am a fan of Bette Midler, but the rendition of "The Rose" I heard that night would have put Ms. Midler to shame. An alto that soared in the heights and growled on the low notes, emotion that no amount of acting could fake, this was what music was supposed to be like.

I was not the only one in the theater with tears in his eyes as she finished her performance to heart-felt applause. As she re-joined me, she saw the moisture in my eyes and hugged me again, saying, " You're crying for my song. You have to be the most perfect man in the world."

"Others are crying too", I pointed out logically, gesturing around the room.

"Yes, but you never cry. I'm right, aren't I? I feel you so deep in my heart and soul. It's like I've known you for centuries." Her eyes, which I will try to describe later, were burning into mine with intensity I had never seen from anyone. And I too, felt the bonds of many lifetimes and many shared adventures.

I can't, and won't try to, explain the rest of that night. We got the lead roles, of course. We sat outside the theater for hours after everyone else had gone home. We hugged almost constantly, and ...nothing else of a physical nature took place. I did not even kiss her. Strange? Bear with me and hear the rest.

As we talked, we discovered that, while I was in what I generously called "advanced middle age", she had just turned twenty. There were almost exactly forty years between us -- forty years that she pooh-poohed as meaning nothing. My wedding band, on the other hand (no pun intended), meant a great deal to her. While she was unmarried, she was in a monogamous relationship, and this too was of paramount importance. And so we launched on a warm July night in Florida, a friendship/love amalgam that would sustain and bedevil us both for a decade.

And now, as I promised, I will try to let you see this amazing woman as I saw her in the Florida moonlight. Her hair was long and a dark chestnut in color. When loose, it fell just below her slim, but athletic shoulders. Her lips were full, but not overly so, and she would bite her lower lip as her eyes sparkled, giving an impression of a child about to say or do something exquisitely naughty. Her neck and her hips, the twin altars at which I longed to worship. The curves...where the neck joined the shoulders in a graceful sweep; that exciting point on her torso where the back and sides begin to flare out into the womanly hips -- oh, Jesus, would I pray my sins away at those altars! She was exquisitely tall, just three inches shy of my own six feet, and her legs were long and tan and carried her height with the poise and grace of a world-class athlete -- except when she ran into something, or tripped, or otherwise returned to human stature. All this made her a beautiful woman, the kind you see occasionally and wish you could touch. But we have not discussed the eyes. The eyes of this goddess at once impaled me and reassured me. Her eyes were laughing while still holding immeasurable empathy and love. They were brown, but "brown" does them no justice. They were black, but "black" has no light or life and her eyes are all light and life. They were at the same time radiant as diamonds and soft as velvet.

This was the woman I met and would never forget for the rest of my life.

And now, I lay beside this remarkable person. I feasted my eyes on her beauty, and her arm rested on my chest in a proprietary way. Anyone seeing us would feel that this was a couple -- an item - a pair of lovers inextricably linked. And perhaps we were. For, from that first night in a theater, we had grown closer and more deeply involved in one another's lives. She knew my grown children, all of whom were older than she. She knew my grandsons and adored them, although she couldn't be too obvious in her attention. When she finally met a man and settled into a quasi-marriage, I was the loving uncle, accepted as such by her "make believe husband". When her friends had problems, she called me in tears, this giving, sharing soul. And when my own situation finally changed, freeing me to travel and enjoy the world in new ways, she made arrangements to join me in Key West for our special celebration. And now, I lay beside her, on a ridiculously huge hammock, and felt my heart bursting from my chest with my love for her.

I slipped quietly from the hammock and covered her near-nudity with a light sheet, leaving her sleeping quietly. I spent an hour in a nearby coffeehouse, enjoying traditional yellow-corn and condensed milk with impenetrable Café Cubano and Cuban bread. Walking by the hammock, I saw that she still slept and, leaving her a note, I headed for my boat, "The Wasted Years".

And now I sat as the boat bobbed gently on the morning waves, fishing off the port stern, almost hoping nothing would bite. I already had a sizeable Yellow Grunt in the well, and, though lacking the panache of the Snapper or Grouper, the Grunt, fried and served with grits, made a mighty fine meal. I just hoped I would have a guest to serve with this Key West specialty. My cell phone rode quiet in its case, and I had almost resigned myself to returning to my solitary life after just the one wonderful day we had shared.

And then...what is that? The slightest sound, a splashing on the starboard side amidships. And there she was, seawater cascading from her long brown hair over that marvelous neck and perfect shoulders. Her small but tantalizing breasts were scantily encased in a scandalously tiny bikini top and she held onto the rope ladder and looked around the boat. Smiling her mock-angry smile, she pulled herself up to the deck, displaying a bikini bottom matching the bra for skimpiness, and glared at me, mischievously.

"Permission to come aboard, your Excellency. Where the hell's my coffee?" And with that, she threw herself into my arms, (ruining any chance of further stocking our larders), and dragged me out of my deck chair and down into the cabin.

It is said that a gentleman doesn't tell, but I must report that the many years we had loved from afar had created a hunger in us both. Last night's absinthe-filled adventure- the flirting with the gorgeous staff of the magical bistro- the dancing in each other's arms- the kisses and caresses -- had ignited a fire that demanded quenching. My little boat was not a cruise ship by any means, but today she was the love boat. The filmy bikini came off and landed on the deck on top of my cut-off jeans and denim shirt. At last, I had the body I had yearned for all these years and she was as warm, loving and sharing as I had dreamed. The pert breasts, still young and still delightful, constituted a comfortable mouthful, which I pleasured with lips and tongue until she fairly writhed with pleasure. For years, I had verbally teased her about all the places my mouth and hands wanted to visit on her body, and today's travelogue included all those ports of call. By the time that she loudly demanded that I enter her and finally accomplish what we had talked about ten years ago, but never done before, she was aflame with desire and passion. For myself, I had not felt it was possible to perform in this way at my age. But my age became an inconsequential number as our bodies moved together in the aeons-old rhythms of sensuous fulfillment, and I heard her give voice to her blazing emotion as her body's spasms of delight pushed me over the pinnacle and I erupted within her in a way I had not experienced -- it seemed -- in a lifetime. The rest of the day passed in languor. The Yellow Grunt fulfilled his destiny as lunch for the most unlikely lovers imaginable, as we ate, drank, swam and frolicked until the sun began to drop toward the horizon.

Then, once more we headed below decks to the cabin, where in a more demure and loving way, we again explored each other and made slow sweet love, culminating in an explosion of satisfaction for us both. I knew two things in that moment of wonder. I knew that we had been lovers together countless times before this in past lifetimes and that there would be equally countless repeats of this scene in future incarnations. But I also knew that, for this lifetime, we had now had our quota of physical love. In the morning a silver sixteen-seater would take her from the Municipal Airport and return her to her everyday life, with her make believe husband, while I would head my little cruiser south, perhaps to the Yucatan, where I would find a painter and forevermore change the name of my pretty little boat. Then again I will cruise away, a satisfied lover, a happy man, and the captain of the cabin cruiser "Fulfillment".