Thank You Ch. 1

Lydia Benson's head pounded, stomach groaned and feet throbbed as she eased her 1999 Beamer into her brand new 3 car garage. Switching the engine off as she clicked the garage door closed behind her, Lydia slowly accepted the dreams of grandeur she had fixated over in her 20's of marrying a rich doctor and leading a life of nonstop traveling, shopping and 3pm dates for tea with her friends were now just naive delusions of youth.

She had married a doctor, a damn good one in fact. Her husband, Jefferey, was one of the most respected Vascular surgeons in the state of Maryland, but with that came a lot of other headaches. Unfortunately, Lydia loved her husband and the fact that she could count the number of weekends they had actually spent together over 18 years of marriage on her two hands, caused her a great deal of frustration and detachment.

Jefferey Benson had succeeded at everything he had every tried in life. Marrying the homecoming queen, becoming a well respected surgeon and providing enough security that his family would never have problems sleeping tight at night.

For Lydia however, the daughter of working class parents, she could never quite get use to the sedentary life expected of most rich housewives. She had gotten her degree in Public Administration while Jefferey was immersed in Medical School and had worked with countless dozens of charities while her husband ascended the heights of his chosen profession.

No matter how good a life of endless shopping sprees and afternoon gab sessions sounded, the reality was that Lydia Benson felt more vital and important helping others. Even though she didn't need to do it, she wanted to. While her husband was busy saving lives, she took great pride in making the lives of those who were alive, just a little better.

On days like today however, Lydia thought to herself that she would much rather be at the beauty salon trading gossip with the girls than dying to get in the house to soak her throbbing feet.

An 8am church breakfast followed by an 11am progress speech to the Baltimore Chapter of the United Way, then an appearance at a local charity golf tournament and finally a 2 hour session for her husband doing fundraising for the American Heart Association had left Lydia Benson longing, at least temporarily, for the life of a spoiled doctor's wife.

Slumping into the house with her purse around her shoulder, a heavy bag of groceries in one arm and her two briefcases in the other, Lydia dropped everything with a thud on the kitchen counter, kicked off her painful heels, grabbed the mail the maid had left on the end table and headed upstairs for a long, hot bath.

* * * * *

Comfortably dipped deep down in the antique gold-rimmed tub full of bubbles, Lydia lazily thumbed through some of the accumulated mail. The first thing to catch her eye was a travel brochure with several pictures of glorious Hawaiian sunsets and images of newlyweds having breakfast in Paris.

"God, I could use a vacation," Lydia moaned dejectedly, enjoying the feeling of the hot oily water soaking her tired bones.

Lost in the myriad of junk mail and bills, a postcard sized letter caught the bathing woman's attention. Flipping it over, Lydia's eyebrows arched when she saw the handwritten University of Maryland-Baltimore County return address in the corner.

"What's this," Lydia whispered, trying to think of anyone the family knew who was going to UMBC.

Curious, even a little nervous about its content, Lydia dropped the other pieces of mail on the floor beside the tub and opened the small letter addressed to the Benson family...

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Benson,

You don't know me, but your family has had a profound effect on my life. Several years ago, while I was a child growing up in Kenya, my family was supported by donations given to us by our church.

After some research, I found that my church back home and yours here in Maryland are connected. I wanted to pay your family a special 'thank you' for donating the money, food and clothing that literally helped save my family's life. Your donations also enabled me to keep attending school and by the grace of God, helped me secure a scholarship to an American university.

I am currently enrolled at UMBC and I felt it neccessary to share my gratitude for playing no small role in my opportunity to have a better life for myself and for my family.

God Bless You,

Kwame Noel

A warm feeling of accomplishment filled Lydia Benson as she read and re-read the lovely show of appreciation. The stresses and frustrations of her busy day quickly drifted away as the realization that the charity work she and her husband did actually made a difference in real peoples' lives. The long hours of pressing the flesh and enduring rubber chicken dinners wasn't what it was all about, it was about the people that the money they raised helped. And in the letter in her hands, at that moment, Lydia held the currency of that success.

Lydia simply couldn't wait to show Jefferey the letter the first chance she got to show him that her time really wasn't being wasted, that she really was vital.

Glowing outwardly, Lydia pulled herself out of the tub, feeling as good about herself as she had in months. Drying her body off with one of the large thick white towels hanging beside the tub, Lydia couldn't help but playfully look at the fogged up mirror on the wall.

Wipping the condensation away with her towel, Lydia could see that the warm water and luxurious bubbles had left her petite body glistening as if it had been polished from head to toe.

"You look 10 years younger than you did an hour ago," the 41 year old woman thought to herself as she dried off.

Easing up to the sink, Lydia grabbed a brush and started gently combing out her sexily matted dark blonde hair until it rested in a long straight mane down to her bare shoulders.

Gracefully cupping her breasts with the towel to dry them off, Lydia couldn't help but notice how her nipples had hardened as she watched herself in the mirror.

Making an internal note to thank Jefferey for the tanning bed he had bought for the house, Lydia surveyed every inch of her richly golden body, satisfied that she didn't have a single tan line anywhere on her five foot two frame.

Lost in her silly fixation over her body and her rare indulgence in bursting self esteem, Lydia was a little shocked to hear her husband call to her from downstairs.

"What's he doing home already?" Lydia asked to herself in the mirror, the countless possibilities of what the night could hold riffling through her empowered psyche.

Feeling frisky, Lydia reached for her thigh length terrycloth robe and dabbed on some makeup as she conjured up mentally what special dinner she could fix for Jefferey and what special dessert she could create as well.

Checking her appearance one last time, Lydia opened the bathroom door, allowing the steam trapped inside to billow out seductively behind her as she descended to spiral staircase to greet her husband.

"Hi Jefferey," Lydia purred slyly as she walked into the living room where her husband was briskly gathering some paperwork.

Slinking up behind her busy husband, Lydia wrapped her thin arms around his belly and kissed him on the back of the neck.

"Hi Honey," Lydia sighed. "Glad you're home early..I thought I'd make us a special dinner... maybe you can go downstairs and pick out a bottle of wine from the cellar. Just a nice quiet night..just you and me..how about it?"

"Sounds great Honey..I'd love to," Jefferey replied back to his wife, loving the way her wet lips and clean body felt against his. "But..the reason I'm home so early is that I've got to catch a flight to Cleveland."

"Huh... Cleveland," Lydia moaned, thinking she didn't hear her husband right.

"Yeah... I'm sorry Baby. A couple of the doctors from John Hopkins are going to assist with a transplant surgery tomorrow," Jefferey relied, genuinely sad he was leaving his wife in a lurch but also showing positive joy in the opportunity to reach a pinnacle in his career. "This is going to make national news..the hospital said CNN will have a few of the doctors on tomorrow after the surgery. Isn't that great!!"

Lydia felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. While she was extremely pleased for her husband to be getting this type of national acclaim, she couldn't help feeling a little selfish in her disappointment that her perfect night alone with Jefferey was ruined.

The situation now changed, Lydia didn't even feel it was the right time or place to share the exquisitely touching letter from the African boy that had wrote to say how much he appreciated the Bensons' help through the church. It almost seemed anti-climatic to share that after her husband groundbreaking transplant news and a potential spot on Larry King.

"Well Honey..that's... fantastic," Lydia added with as much fake vigor as she could. "Besides..we can have dinner anytime and it will give me a chance to brag to all my friends that my husband is on national TV. Let me go upstairs and get a couple of days worth of clothes together for you... How many days should I pack for?"

"I'll probably be gone at least four days, but here's the cool part Honey," Jefferey started, "the hospital is paying my whole way and since it's such a special occasion, they are springing for everyone's family as well."

Lydia's eyes immediately brightened as the opportunity to get away for a while was offered to her on a silver platter.

"I'm so backed up right now though, Jefferey," Lydia huffed disappointedly, pointing to the two large briefcases full of work waiting on the sofa. "Maybe I can join you there on Friday... but right now I just have too many commitments to take care of."

* * * * *

As Lydia finished packing a few things for her husband, she came across the slightly wet letter that the young man from Kenya had sent. Lydia instantly felt the urge to read its contents again, its simple words again soothing her and making her feel valued. Lydia quickly put the letter down and covered it with a towel however, when Jefferey burst into the bathroom to collect a few toiletries for the trip.

"I gotta go..Larry's waiting outside. We are going to take his car to the airport," Jefferey Benson matter of factly said as he streaked through the bedroom to grab the last of his things. "I love you Lydia... I'll call you sometime tomorrow."

Mechanically reaching out to give Jefferey a peck on the cheek as he rushed by, Lydia waved and wished him luck as he headed out the front door.

Heading back up to her room, Lydia sat on the edge of her freshly made bed and allowed the emptiness of the house to surround her. Looking out the window and seeing that twilight was falling on Baltimore, after such grand plans minutes earlier, Lydia didn't have a clue what to do with a whole night just to herself.

* * * * *

Hating the headaches that generally went with it, Lydia had pretty much given up drinking years earlier until the only hard alcohol she touched was during the occasional party or dinner outing.

It was clear then that tonight was a special occasion for Lydia when she found herself sitting in Jefferey's study, with the liquor cabinet open, searching for just the right 'pick me up'. She finally settled for a Vodka on the rocks.

"If you're gonna do it..do it right," Lydia said as she toasted herself, feeling strangely giddy as the sounds of the ice cubes swirling around the chilled glass clinked and cracked together in the otherwise silent room.

Lydia contemplated calling up a few of her friends to pass the time or maybe going through the couple's extensive movie collection to find a film to lose herself in, but each time Lydia thought about getting up, she ended up pouring herself another stiff drink.

As the vaguely distant and unfamiliar feelings of a buzz descended upon Lydia's brain cells, the lonely woman jumped up from her chair and switched on the CD player, filling the house with the sounds of Mozart as she floated like a butterfly from room to room.

Lydia finally found herself back upstairs in her room, needing to take the inevitable bathroom break that always came when she drank. Sitting on the toilet, Lydia saw the letter from Kwame partially hidden under a towel on the sink beside her. Reaching for it, Lydia remembered the boy saying something about being enrolled at UMBC.

As the staggering blonde made her way back down the steps to mix drink number five, Lydia remembered the UMBC student directory she kept in the house for several fundraising activities she had helped the school with in the recent past.

"That's what I'll do," Lydia hummed. "That was such a sweet thing for that boy to do..the least I can do is thank him for his letter."

Once she found the phone book, Lydia thumbed through the directory until she came across the name of Kwame Noel, Freshman exchange student from Kenya.

"That's it," Lydia said between sips of her Smirnoff. "That's the same address..and there's his number. He is real! Hell..it's too late though..I'll call him tomorrow."

If Lydia had the presence of a mirror beside her at that moment, she would have seen the pale skin on her face and neck noticeably blushed from a combination of alcohol and shy appreciation. She would have also seen the way her nipples visibly protruded through her loose fitting tee-shirt, another unsightly effect of booze when she overindulged.

"Time to go to bed," Lydia said to herself as lethargy overtook her.

* * * * *

Sleep didn't come easily for Lydia Benson that night. Laying at the cusp of sleep several times, she just couldn't seem to get herself to fall over the edge and enjoy the pleasures of a good night's rest.

Lydia knew she had lied slightly to her husband about the extent of how busy she'd be for the next few days. While she did have a ton of little errands to attend to in the coming days, she didn't have anything so pressing that she couldn't have delayed it for an opportunity to join Jefferey in Cleveland.

Perhaps Lydia's failure to fall asleep could be traced to the fact that she didn't have anything pressing first thing in the morning to wake her from bed like she usually did. That, and the issues still burning between her thighs from what he had internally planned on doing with her husband, kept Lydia's body and mind from succumbing to sleep. Looking over at the green digital light of the alarm clock on the nightstand, Lydia saw that it said 11:13pm.

"Only 12 minutes since the last time you looked," Lydia bitterly reminded herself.

With the overflowing desires still in her body from what she had planned on doing with her husband, Lydia frustratingly accepted the only course of action to relieve her built up sexual angst.

Allowing her right hand to disappear underneath the luxurious down comforter covering her body, Lydia gently drifted her fingertips down her warm skin until they brushed up against the familiar wet, rubbery lips of her steaming vagina.

Shutting her eyes tight, Lydia tried her best to conjure up any hint of an erotic thought she could, to hasten her guilty act of wantonness. A multitude of shadowy images flashed through Lydia's mind like a bad silent movie as she traced the pouting lips of her pussy with her middle and index finger.

The image of her husband drifted in and out of Lydia's visual field, but considering the night she had been put through, Jefferey was the last thing she wanted to think about.

Lydia then tried conjuring the images of several of the men she had encountered during the past day's travels. The first and most enticing vision Lydia could come up with was that of Brian Muldavy, the golf pro at the country club where Lydia had spent a few hours helping out with a charity round.

Even in the dark reaches of her fantasy life, Lydia still struggled with her conscience however. Even though Brian Muldavy was the perfect specimen in every way, Lydia couldn't help but picture Brian's lovely wife, Katrina, who also helped Lydia frequently with charitable endeavors. To top it off, Katrina Muldavy was a sweetheart as well and each time Lydia thought of Brian in a sexual way, the disapproving image of Katrina reared its ugly head.

"I can't do that..let's see who else I can do," Lydia snipped to herself, continuing to frig her pussy until just the right idea came along.

Her sexual self esteem now trolling the depths of her imagination, Lydia even thought for a fleeting moment about her pastor at the church. Roland Dudley was such a sweet and kind man. One that put anyone at ease the moment he walked into the room, and frankly, Lydia considered the 60 year old pastor a pseudo father figure.

Shaking her head bitterly to the side, disgusted at herself for even having that brief indecent thought, Lydia immediately removed her right hand from her crotch and rolled over to go to sleep.

"I can't even do that right," Lydia fumed out loud, not knowing whether to laugh or cry from her curious dilemma.

"Maybe I'll flip on the TV for a while..maybe it'll help me settle down," Lydia whispered in the dark as she drunkenly reached for the remote beside the bed.

Flipping on the TV, Lydia realized she was too late to catch the late local news and ended up wandering up and down the dial, just the same way she always scolded her husband for when he couldn't find anything of interest to watch.

Surfing through the scourge of late night comedy, re-runs and infomercials, Lydia was dashed with a dose of irony when a commercial for "Save the Children" came on and she couldn't help sneaking a peek over at the young Kenyan boy's letter she had got in the mail earlier.

Watching Sally Struther's chubby face fill the screen, Lydia's drunken tongue lashed the ex TV-star. "If that fat old Struthers woman would share some of her meal money with those kids, no one in the world would go hungry tonight!"

Sitting up briskly in bed, Lydia switched the lamp beside the bed on, the lightbulb illuminating both in reality and symbolically, showing that she had an idea.

Reaching over and grabbing the UMBC student directory along with her cordless, Lydia started to dial the exchange student's listed number before her conscience could step in.

The first ring sounded in Lydia's ear at the same moment she looked over at the digital clock to see that it was 5 minutes to 12.

"What are you doing calling a complete stranger at midnight?" she asked herself dazedly.

Feeling her palms instantly become sweaty, Lydia vacillated for a brief moment over hanging the phone up as the second ring sounded. Just as she brought her right hand up to click off the connection, a deep male voice on the other end said, "Hello."

"Ahh..haa..hello," was all Lydia could muster for a few agonizingly awkward seconds.

She could hear the man on the other end breathing as he patiently waited for Lydia to continue.

"Is... ahhh... Kw... Kwame there?" Lydia finally spat out softly, assuming the husky voice on the other end was, in fact, the kind boy that had mailed her the 'thank you' note.

"No," the voice quickly replied. "He's out with a few friends..he should be home anytime though. Can I take a mess...,"the young man started to answer before Lydia anxiously interrupted.

"Ahh..no..that's OK... I'll ahh..try back later," Lydia answered nervously, hanging up before the word 'later' was even out of her mouth.

Her heart pounding from definite embarrassment, Lydia sat the phone back down on the table beside her and sunk back down into bed. "What in the Hell have I done?"

Switching the lamp off, so that she was once again bathed in near darkness, Lydia felt her blood pumping through every square inch of her body as she rested numbly under the dim, flickering white light of the television at the foot of the bed, desperately wanting to sink into the mattress and disappear from sight.