From Across a Crowded Room Ch. 02

******** CHAPTER TWO

The years passed. While in college, I found a girl named Miranda that I was fond of and was 98% in love with, married her, produced a lovely daughter named Clara, and then we drifted off into divorce after a few years. I was already making pretty good money right out of school, but my ex couldn't resist the urge to have an affair and attempt to trade up to a slightly better model. It was 'my fault', she said, for working all of those long hours and not giving her enough attention.

I was bitter about it for about ten or fifteen years, but I got over it and we're reasonably friendly these days, for our daughter's sake if nothing else. Miranda is on husband number five now, but I think this one might last. She traded down for a man with half the income of her latest ex, but chose a good man who treats her like a queen instead. Money isn't everything.

Another old saying is that it is true that you never forget your first love. I never did.

********

Naturally, I didn't quite give my entirely too smart and precocious daughter Clara the full play by play of our only sexual experience. I just insinuated that we had been intimate, but left the details for her very fertile imagination. She's totally shameless and would at the drop of a hat tell me all of the details of her couplings, as if I were one of her university girlfriends. I have to be firm with her and say 'too much information' and hold my hands over my ears a lot, but despite this fault she is still a delight to be around.

Still, it took four or five direct orders to her to stop her from making a full-frontal direct approach to Candice upon my behalf. Grudgingly, I did allow her to use her own personal account to make an end-run into find out more information.

Back up in Austin for the semester at the University of Texas, my daughter successfully tunneled her way into Candice's life via every electronic backdoor she could find. The big break in the case was finding that Candice apparently had a daughter at UT also, and my scheming but adorable daughter had ferreted her out and made personal contact with her. Quite quickly the two of them met for a drink after classes and quickly hit it off, becoming close friends. There was a hint that the two of them had rumpled a few blankets or bed sheets together themselves, but I invoked my 'Way too much information' clause, and held the phone away from my ear until she changed the subject away from the juicy gynecological details. I gathered that Aurora, Candice's daughter was very beautiful (and cuddly) in a girl next door sort of way.

I don't mind the concept of 'Lesbian until Graduation' (LUG), or that my tall and curvy daughter prefers this method of birth control and to prevent other male related 'relationship' distractions from her studies, but I just don't need to hear the juicy details... it makes my pants too tight in the front.

In her triumphant phone call home a few weeks later, Clara gave me the lowdown on what she had learned about Candice. It actually wasn't a whole lot, as her daughter Aurora was a bit estranged from her mother at the moment. She didn't even know who her natural father was and there had been no recent step-fathers. Aurora was smart, pretty and extremely independent, having earned two different scholarships to fund her university education -- and she was more than a bit of a free spirit. Reading between the lines I could tell that Clara was very smitten, maybe even in real love for the first time.

"Good for you!" I assured her. I couldn't blame her one little bit. Even if our daughters each had only inherited half of Candice's and my magnetic connection to each other, they'd be lucky to ever separate either, once joined together.

About Candice, Clara could find out relatively little. She apparently lived in a tiny run down efficiency apartment, didn't own a car, and worked for near minimum wage doing something at some local shopping mall. Getting by somehow in life, but not really doing too very well.

It was also unclear as to exactly what the disagreement was between mother and daughter, but it probably involved Aurora's disapproval over a recent boyfriend of her mother's, and now that he was gone their relationship was slowly mending again. Apparently, Candice had been divorced at least once and had trouble maintaining any sort of romantic relationship since. Candice did love her daughter, regularly sending her any money that she could spare, but she was apparently living on the knife edge of utter poverty.

All very interesting, but none of this helped me to locate her very much. Assuming that I was willing to throw myself out the door and drive for four hours to track down a girl I'd once had sex with over twenty years ago. Darn tooting I was!

I send Clara back to work to at least pry the name of the shopping mall that Candice worked at out of Aurora's tight and secretive (but apparently very kissable lips). It took another three weeks, but a week before the Thanksgiving holiday I was armed with the name of the mall and some vague map instructions on how to find the place and off I went. The driving weather was lovely, it was bright but a little cool, ideally suited for a long road trip, but the miles seemed to stretch endlessly.

*******

Would she even remember me? I doubted it. It had been over twety years, nearly exactly.

Could I even recognize her today? Once my eyes had captured her from far across a crowded room, but now I wasn't nearly so keen of sight. I needed glasses now. Well at least I still had all my original hair, and mostly the same color. Just a little silver in with the golden red. I wish I could say the same thing about my waistline. No one is the same weight they were at seventeen... but I began to wish I hadn't added quite as much extra stomach padding.

Even if she remembers me and recognizes me, would she even care? I'd probably be some pimply teen who had banged her decades ago. There would first be the look of shock, then embarrassment. She'd exchange pleasantries and talk in general terms about the past, but in the end she'd hugged me goodbye as though my body were wrapped in electric barbed wire. She'd leave without even a hint of a look back.

Besides, there's an unpleasant term for men who do what I've just done. It's called stalking. Most women don't seem to find this sort of attention appealing.

During my drive I must have thought of a hundred reasons why this trip was a really stupid and bad idea. Many of the reasons were even good ones. On the other hand, I had just one reason on the plus column -- I just needed to see her again. I just felt that I'd never be complete in my heart until I had found her once again, just one more time, even briefly if necessary. Somehow, one bad reason seemed far more compelling to me than a hundred good ones.

So onward I went to face my doom.

*********

It was early afternoon when I parked my car at the shopping mall. Just about perfect I figured for catching my old lover working at her job, wherever it was. Aurora hadn't confessed up that particular part. I did get the impression that she worked somewhere inside the main mall area and not in one of the big box retail stories. That ought to cut down my searching area considerably. Still, I walked the mall for nearly two hours before I found her.

Once again, from across the crowded area of the food court, I saw Candice, hard at work behind the counter of a small burger and ice cream joint, in the process of serving up some hand-scooped ice cream to an impatient mother and her pair of unappreciative toddlers. Somewhere in the back grill area, a loud unpleasant female voice was bellowing at her to hurry up and attend to the burgers on the grill.

Ouch. Déjà vu all over again. For me, this was exactly like being back at the amusement park once again, and I hadn't much enjoyed it the first time around.

Candice looked older and heavier. Didn't we all? Her hair was much the same color as it had been but maybe with just a hint of gray in the roots. Her breasts were compacted into a tight white restaurant serving dress, but hinted that her cup size was now at least a size or two larger, quite appropriate for a still lovely mature woman. The face looked tired and worn out nearly to the bone, but the eyes... the eyes were still an electric blue that stabbed me all the way across the foot court. Beyond all doubt, this was my Candice -- the girl, now a woman, that I had once loved and pined for.

Sometimes history repeats itself in oddly peculiar ways, as if the Gods of Love, Fate or Chance just can't resist meddling with an already perfect thing. I hadn't made it halfway across the tables and chairs of the food court as I walked to her food stand, when she suddenly lifted up her head and instantly made eye contact with me.

She dropped the cone she was dipping; I stumbled smack into a table - and our eyes became affixed together. When I made it finally over to the counter I could see that she was smiling and had tears flowing in her eyes.

"I'd love to!" She said, much as an echo of our first greeting. "But first, since you've got the superior training and expertise, could you scoop out these two vanilla cones for me? I swear they keep the stuff here frozen even harder than they did at 'DisasterWorld', but at least you've still got the wrist muscles to deal with it!"

How could I resist? I started to head behind the counter to scoop the cones but the fickle customer was having none of it and rushed her maniacal younglings off to McDonalds for some soft-serve instead. Good riddance. That just left one final obstacle in our path, the harridan owner of the food booth that had been making Candice's life miserable since she started working there six months ago.

She wasn't happy to see me at all, and she gave Candice a bunch of marching orders in much of the same manner as she would have spoken to a dog. I looked at Candice and she look probingly at me, with tears still flowing in her eyes.

"Yes, darling, I'm here to take you away from all of this, unless your father is waiting for you outside once again. Better late than never I guess. Go tell the dried up fart behind the counter that she can kiss your magnificent ass goodbye, because you're coming with me... NOW!" Candice always did like it went I took firm control over her and from the smile growing on her face I could see that this assertiveness was far from unwelcome.

The uptight bitch behind the counter started to rant something about Candice voiding her final paycheck by walking out, but I nipped that one in the bud.

"You. Shut up and take this business card. This is where you will mail Candice's final check, and I expect to see it no later than next Saturday in my mailbox. Otherwise, you will receive another business card from me containing the name of my lawyer, who specializes in employment based legal cases. Pay the fucking final paycheck or lose your entire business... the choice is up to you, I couldn't give the slightest shit!"

Her boss blustered and fussed while Candice collected up her purse and a few remaining personal items and came to me with an outstretched hand. Together, arm in arm, we walked out from the food court without the slightest glimpse at the mayhem we had caused behind us, as her old boss loudly cursed us both at the top of her lungs and using language quite unsuited for the ears of children. To preserve the last shreds of her dignity, I waited to grab and kiss her well after we were out of sight of the food court.

"You smell gently of popcorn." I said as I pulled her closer to me fearing that at last she would retreat from my embrace. Instead she cried more tears of happiness and pushed herself as tight against me as she could force herself.

Somewhere in the background the mall sound system was playing a Muzak easy listening version of "Staying Alive" and the Gods of Love were undoubtedly laughing themselves silly.

It was a very long kiss as each of us was afraid to be the first one to let go.

***********

Packing Candice's pitifully few belonging at her tiny apartment didn't take very long. The furniture was old and well-worn, third hand stuff at least. There was just one chair that she was fond of and it fit nicely in the back seat of my car. The rest of the furniture she set outside on the small bit of lawn in front of the sidewalk for anyone to take.

She was equally frugal about packing her clothing. Her work uniforms and shoes she added to the give-away pile outdoors, as did many of her older and more worn out clothes. The end result was one suitcase of her better clothes and another smaller one containing her favorite bric-a-brac, family photos and mementos.

"Not much to show for over twenty years." She muttered.

"I don't know about that," I replied. "It seems that you've saved the most important thing that I've been looking for those same years, yourself."

That got us distracted while we reacquainted ourselves with each others tongues and tonsils. I briefly looked over towards her small bed which hadn't made it outside to the curb yet, but she shook her head.

"Not here. I've always wanted our reunion to be special, to be magical somehow, and this dump just won't do it. Too many bad memories here too. I want our first time back together again to be nicer and far more memorable." I didn't disagree.

Once the house was stripped clean, she put her bags into the trunk of my car and we drove over to her landlords to give notice that she'd moved out and to turn in her keys. She was a little concerned that due to the extreme short notice that she'd lose her security deposit, but I assured her that losing the three hundred dollars was not going to be any sort of problem for me.

Unspoken, the issue of money was starting to churn in the back of her head, conflicting with her 'charge ahead at full stream' efforts towards rekindling our long past, but still smoldering relationship. I decided it was time to nip this one in the bud.

I called up Clara on her cell phone and she was delighted to find out that I was in town, complete with my past lady-love under my arm. I asked her to track down Aurora, if she could, and for the four of us to meet at the Town Lake Holiday Inn in about two hours for dinner. From the nibbling and cooing sounds I was hearing, I guessed that Aurora was indeed right there, albeit very distracted, and they both agreed to come.

While waiting, I phoned my secretary to have her make the dinner and hotel reservations for the night. I've got tons of loyalty bonus points with Holiday Inn, but only my secretary knows the account number by heart. Besides she gets crabby if I make any of my own travel arrangements.

Seated in the restaurant quite early for our dinner, still hand in hand, we started on a bottle of wine and began our outpouring of confessions to each.

I told her of my divorce and of my favorite (and only) daughter, and of how instead of remarrying I had focused my energies on starting my own engineering firm and of how it had done rather well over the last dozen years. We weren't quite a Top Texas 100 company yet, but we're getting close. Money wasn't going to be any sort of issue for us. My house wasn't large, but it was nice and suited for a bachelor. If we needed more room? I let that query die, not elaborated upon. Even a much bigger house wouldn't scratch my savings, let alone my salary I earned as the owner and top boss. I knew in my heart that Candice was no gold-digger, but on the other hand after her life of poverty I didn't want to rub her nose, or any other cute part of her, into my apparent wealth.

As I suspected, Candice's post amusement park career had been less stellar. Late in her senior year of high school she had gotten pregnant (forgot to take the damn pills again) and her conservative father would not permit her to either abort the child or offer it for adoption. Despite good grades, Candice wasn't able to go straight into college due to having to care for Aurora and soon she began to revolt against living in her father's house and still keeping to his rules.

In the years that followed she started to keep bad company and soon found herself repeatedly pregnant by different men, but arranged early abortions for those other babies. She married once and while she liked and preferred men to dominate her in bed, she had little taste for domestic abuse otherwise. She seemed to need a strong man in her life, but kept finding 'mean bastards' instead.

It seemed that no man she ever met, fulfilled the standards set by a certain red-haired boy she met late one summer while working at a theme park. The sort of guy who was kind and considerate on dates, but was masterfully firm, yet loving in bed.

I agreed those were very tough standards to match, as was a certain young kind-hearted and affectionate girl of my early acquaintance. It was only the imminent arrival of our children that kept our fingers and mouths from wandering and quite possibly causing a scandal in the restaurant.

We were grilled remorselessly by our stern, but otherwise fully approving children for the better part of the next two hours. It was quite clearly established, that for now at least, Candice was coming home with me... preferably to stay. Forever if possible, but even longer would be nicer still. We in turn pretended not to notice that our daughters were playing wandering fingers under the tablecloth and both of their lipsticks were rather smudged.

We agreed that all of the sleeping arrangements in our family were currently a bit peculiar.

*******

Upstairs alone at last in our hotel room (we had to both firmly scold our daughters telling them that 'No, they could most certainly not come upstairs to watch us'), it was my turn to put out the 'Do Not Disturb' sign. Instead of blankets on a wooden floor we had a very nice king sized bed that seemed to offer quite a lot of opportunity for a proper sexual frenzy.

Candice was the first to shed her clothes and quickly appeared before me as a mature vision of loveliness. Of course it wasn't the same body I had so enjoyed caressing and fondling two decades ago, but for a thirty-nine year old woman of very limited means, she had done a pretty good job of keeping age and gravity at bay. I made a note to myself to get off of my well cushioned ass and start getting some regular serious exercise.

Standing nude once again before me, she once again began her trail of kisses all over my body as she slowly undressed me before kneeling at supplication before unzipping and releasing my erect cock. Her oral skills had certainly not declined in any way and I had to warn her sooner than I would have wished that I was getting close to orgasm.

"Not yet!" She softly warned me. "I have plans for you. I want you to fuck my mouth, just like you did that time before. Hold me hard and firm and make me drink your cum, drive it deep into my throat. Don't worry, I'll get you rock hard again!"

And she did!

While she sucked me hard again, I amused myself by twiddling her clit and I was rewarded by a small orgasm that triggered her need for us to make some firmer, more physical contact. At first I thought she wanted me to fuck her ass again, to completely replay our original tryst those many years ago, but she had a different idea.

'Sweetie, I love having my ass fucked, and you're going to enjoy fucking it a lot, and the harder the better... but not tonight or even tomorrow. Your cum is going right into my cunt, just as it should have done all those many years ago. I should have let you do me there, right then that first time... I should have made you! Then we could have maybe found a way to be together later, and my daughter could have been 'our' daughter together. I'm not in menopause yet, and maybe I've still got a few good eggs left... and I want to find out if I can still give you 'our' baby, twenty-two years later... but hopefully still not quite too late.