Cross Passage

6:55 found me at the bar of the Spectator swirling bourbon in a tumbler waiting on Ms. Toller-Siever. When I looked up she stood there, spectacular in every sense of the word, her low cut midnight blue dress filled abundantly with milky white breasts, hem a bit high on her thigh, dark red lipstick and smoky eyes. My fingers wanted to adjust the prick in my pants but I resisted the need.

"Jesus" I whispered trying to keep it under my breath. She just smiled and greeted me with a European embrace, the moistness of her lips on each cheek.

"Ms. Kirsten, you look stunning as usual."

"Captain Bunyon, you are man of wonderful words. What woman would tire of being called stunning?"

With the bourbon finished, Kirsten slipped a wrap over her shoulders and we hailed a Pedi cab out front for the ride over to Broad Street and The Oak. We arrived and the maître de led us to our reservation seats in a cozy alcove on the 2nd floor.

"And the Mrs.?" She asked over desert.

I hadn't said anything about my discoveries a couple days before but we were comfortable enough with each other for me to say it was likely the proverbial nail in the coffin as far as her current living arrangements were concerned.

"No hope of reconciliation?" She asked with deadpan seriousness.

"I don't see how it could ever be possible."

It was as if a spark lit up her eyes.

"That's why you're not wearing your ring?"

I had actually completely forgotten about it but she was right. Tammy and I were done.

"Let me settle up and let's take a stroll around town." I suggested.

We walked out onto the street on Broad and Kirsten slipped her heels off and pulled on pair of slip on canvas walkers before she took my arm in hers and we strolled through the maze of antique shops and galleries. It was a cool early March evening, just comfortable enough for her wrap and my tweed.

After an hour or so I hailed another Pedi cab and the two of were whisked away toward Henry's House for another libation and to be honest I wanted to show off to Satch with Kirsten on my arm just to rub it in a bit.

"You know my usual, man, and a white wine for my escort." I chuckled to him at the bar. It was a weeknight crowd so the meat market purveyors weren't quite as numerous as the weekend set.

"It's good to see that Max here has finally realized he needs a chaperone." He smiled while mouthing 'Tammy?" at me out of eyesight. I just shook my head slightly.

Kirsten smiled and clasped my arm tighter which amused Satch even more.

She was like honey laid out for the bees. The handful of regulars all made their way over at some point just to examine the goods. It was bad of me to take her to Henry's but at that point I didn't care. We were having a good time and it was my comfort zone.

We each had maybe a little too much to drink and the inhibitions were dropping to basement sale levels as two aroused adults continued to make amorous eye contact. I know I glanced at my naked finger a couple of times wondering but at some point the knowledge of Jim Dahlberg pushed any concern aside.

"My place?" I asked. "Yes... please, let's go" She replied hastily...

The house was quiet when I turned the deadbolt and we entered the parlor. The two students lived up on the third floor and I rarely saw them in the evening which was probably a good thing since I hadn't mentioned them to Kirsten with my mind immersed in a lust driven haze.

"Max..." She whispered. "I want you."

She glanced toward the stairs and let one strap of her dress fall to the elbow as she returned her sultry stare to my eyes. With a tug on the remaining strap the blue dress fell to her waist and then her ankles as she stepped out of it leaving it on the floor. Standing before me in a lacy beige slip barely containing her beautiful breasts and smiling with an almost wicked demeanor, Kirsten turned and slowly moved her full, firm ass up the steps, moving slowly for full effect.

I followed with my gaze mesmerized on her mature ass knowing the delights that waited.

"Straight ahead" I mumbled with only half a voice when she reached the landing at the top of the stairs and lifted the slip fully above her head and let it fall to the foot of the 3rd story stairs.

She stood before me nearly naked, only a pair of French cut lace panties concealing the sensual prize that countless men before me must have pursued at some point; her breasts heaving in anticipation of our carnal pleasures once we stepped across the threshold.

'Adultery... Dahlberg... Cheating... Dahlberg... Tammy... Bitch' my mind worked overtime in nanoseconds as I swept Kirsten up in my arms and carried her over the threshold, her lips buried at my throat. I laid her down on my bed and rapidly stripped my clothing off with her eyes locked on mine. I had swallowed the little blue recreational drug of choice for the middle aged when we left Henry's and there was little doubt of my intentions as I mounted the bed at full mast.

"Do it all, Max" She panted as my thumbs found the waistband of her silk panties and I tugged them down and off her ankles.

I don't know what she meant by 'all' but I started with both hands under her naked ass and my tongue opening and exploring her full vulva and enticing a large clitoris out of her hood. Slow, deliberate circling motions with the flat of my tongue started her on the journey and as I continued her hands pushed me lower to lick the wetness of her open, pink vagina. It didn't take long; she exploded in an orgasm, not just with her hips but with her full throaty voice. If the girls upstairs were sleeping, they were not now.

This was the first woman other than Tammy in my bed for over twenty years and I had become complacent with the expectations of one woman with a modestly varying routine over the years. Kirsten rose up on her haunches and pushed me over onto my back before straddling my face with her wet sex and whispering 'More'.

With her hands on the headboard and my face fully in her control, my lover fucked me, orally, from her clitoris to her ass and back, over and over. I felt it coming again; that building quiver in her thighs for just a few seconds and then she launched into a whorishly delightful orgasm with her panting delights likely heard in the street below.

"Jesus" was all I could say as she lay back for a moment.

"I love a man who can eat pussy the way I like it" she chuckled and winked.

Moments later my Teutonic goddess straddled me and began stroking my already engorged prick with one hand and teasing the tip with the other. She looked in my eyes and without breaking the gaze deep throated my cock in one fluid motion. She kept our eyes locked on each other as she sucked with obvious pleasure on her face. There was no way I was going to let her make me cum. I cradled a full breast in my hand as she continued and before she could pull me over the edge I stopped her.

She lay back and opened her thighs giving me a perfect view of the sex I was going to possess. It was pink, opened with a slight gape with a neatly trimmed ring of dark curls contrasting against her soft white skin. Running the mushroom head of my dick up and down her vagina, I mounted my lover and entered her fully with one slow push into her hot, wet sex.

It was missionary, the position of intimate lovers, face to face with her large breasts pressed against my chest. This has always been my favorite and not being short on endowment I've always enjoyed the full depth of every fuck. We started out slow and loving but soon it morphed into pure carnal lust. When I reached for a nipple, she found my ass and fingered my prostate until I couldn't hold back any longer.

"Cum now, baby" she whispered as she locked her ankles around my ass preventing me from slowing or pulling out. I did just that and collapsed on her breasts before sliding to the side as we both burst out laughing.

"Jesus, Kirsten that was fantastic" I whispered in her ear as we cuddled and she ran her fingers through the hair on my chest. She kissed my nipple and laid her face on my chest. Between the alcohol, the sex and the late hour, we were both soon asleep on the damp sheets without a care in the world.

It was close to mid-morning when I first stirred and Kirsten had already risen. I didn't hear her when I headed to the shower and when I returned to the bedroom she was still gone. I threw on some scrubs and a tee shirt and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

"Well, good morning Captain Max" Kirsten beamed as she sat at the table with my two students from upstairs. They both had conniving 'gotcha' grins on their faces as they buttered their muffins.

"The girls and I were just enjoying a nice chat after they were kind enough to pick up my, er, belongings this morning." She nodded toward her clothes in an empty chair.

"That was nice of them." I said trying to suppress my own smile as I poured a fresh cup of coffee. The two girls excused themselves with a giggle and Kirsten had a bit of a faux supercilious expression.

"Well, I just forgot to tell you that I board out the top floor of the house."

She made one of those faces that women make when a man knows he fucked up but not badly so.

"That's OK, they are nice young ladies. I think one of them has a strong crush on you, Max. Don't break her heart too badly." She smiled.

We enjoyed the breakfast and after cleaning up I gave her a tour of the market area and by lunchtime we grabbed a spot at a courtyard café.

"Max, so what are you going to do about your wife at this point? I know you said it was over but does she know?"

It was a fair question and one I really hadn't inked indelibly. There was Tammy of course and then Thomas and Sophie and the white Mandingo Jim Dahlberg. I still pictured his prick in a Mason jar aging on the mantle.

"She lied to me when she had the opportunity to come clean and put all of this behind us. I don't see a way back especially now and no, it's not what we did, Kirsten. It's what she did and what she's still doing."

"So she didn't break it off?"

"Apparently not." I gazed out into the street with its throng of passersby.

Even then I knew had Tammy come clean and laid everything out and begged forgiveness back on that rainy day in the kitchen I would have forgiven her, even letting the Dahlberg affair fall into the past. That's how much I loved her. I never would have fallen into bed with Kirsten or even entertained such thoughts but it was all past misery now. I knew what I had to do.

Kirsten was heading to D.C the next day and then off to New York City for a couple weeks. The attraction between us was electric and I almost brushed everything off to join her but I knew there was some unpleasantness remaining that had to be dealt with. The two of us rounded out the day with a water taxi tour of the harbor and river reaches and I walked her back to the Spectator.

"Sure you won't come up, Max?"

We had talked about what I had to do so I turned down the offer but not before a long embrace and whispered promises. With that I turned back toward the market and an office up on King Street...

It was overcast and drizzly when I landed and grabbed my bag. The hotel shuttlebus took me to my reservation and after settling in I soon found myself at the bar finger stirring the bourbon while watching a CBC drone go on and on about some First Nation nonsense I knew nothing about. A pretty waitress came by and offered a refill but I had business to tend to so I demurely waved her off.

"West 10th next to the University, please" I motioned to my driver when he picked me up. I had checked the GPS read on her phone and knew she was there or at least electronically she was. The cliché envelope rested in my lap as the driver wound his path through the busy streets avoiding a pedestrian or two along the way.

We came to a stop before a four story converted apartment building and I peered up at the top floor, far left wondering if the god of hellfire had placed enough obstacles in my path. I almost said to hell with it and was tempted to drop the envelope in a post box down the street and go home.

"You want me to wait, sir?" The polite driver asked as if he were reading the state of my mind.

"No, go ahead. I don't know how long I'll be." He handed me his card after I paid him in case I needed him back.

I climbed the stairs until I reached the landing at the top and looked at the neat entry way at the end of the hall with a couple potted plants standing sentry at the door. 404A in Old English Numerals were gilded onto the frame.

I still had my leather driving gloves on when I knocked on the door and again a second time.

"God damn it, Pryor, you fucking cunt." A man yelled out as I heard his approach to the door. He opened it and gape mouthed and wide eyed with utter surprise saw me standing there.

"Max, I thought-"

Thirty years of hands on engineering and running gangways and planking and pulling pipes and motors had not left me a soft man even at fifty two years of age. An overhand left nailed his jaw right below the ear and Jim Dahlberg crumpled to the floor of the apartment foyer and as I stood over him, I pulled out my cock and pissed on his knocked out face. It wasn't his cock in a pickle jar but it was good enough.

I stepped over him when I was done and took a seat in the living room as Tammy finally came running down the hall, water still dripping off her from the shower I interrupted. She had on a very short terry robe barely covering her beautiful ass and her nipples were exposed through the loose front. Under different circumstances I might have been aroused but not today.

She stood in the hallway staring at me unable or unwilling to speak. I nodded toward her unconscious paramour laid out in the foyer in nothing but his boxer briefs.

"Take a seat, Tammy. We have a few things to discuss." I motioned toward the couch as I rose to close the front door stepping over the son of a bitch who had been fucking my wife for at least a year.

"Why didn't you just come clean back at the house, Tammy? Well, I guess there is no need to answer that since you obviously had no intention of giving him up."

Dahlberg started to stir and Tammy rushed over to help.

"Max, this was just not called for. What in hell were you thinking?"

I looked at her in disbelief.

"I was thinking of all the times he fucked your cheating cunt in my bed or his or wherever. That's what I was thinking."

I tossed the yellow envelop onto the coffee table and watched her eyes grow wide.

"Max, it's not what you think."

I cut her off and walked down the hall toward the only god damn bedroom in the apartment where I saw the freshly fucked bedsheets and both their clothes strewn on the floor. Tammy had helped Dahlberg to the couch where he lay back in a fucking daze.

"I've been fair, Tammy, half the savings over the past 12 years since we made it official. We each have our own retirements so no need to muddy up things there. I had my house before you came along and you have your bungalow over in West Ashley. I'm going to make it simple. Just sign the papers and I'll have your things delivered cross town."

She looked like the reaper had just swept in and wiped out the top floor in a blood bath and Dahlberg sat there like a Canadian chipmunk as his jaw had swollen and puffed the side of his face; I had felt it break when I caught him solid.

"Max, let me come home to talk and see if we can get past this, please."

I just shook my head.

"Tammy, I nearly fell in love with you the first time I ever saw you and to be honest I'm still in love with you but you've ripped my heart out with this. I will never be able to trust you ever again. How in hell could I? It could have been thirty men instead of three; I'll never know and at this point, why would it matter? No, you killed us and I don't see any way back."

"You can't mean this, Max, you can't!"

I looked at her scantily clad in an apartment a continent away from home with the odor of sex still clinging in the air back in the bedroom and nodded at Jim Dahlberg before shaking my head.

"Jesus H.

"Don't come back to the house, Tammy. There will not be a single thing there for you. The girls will know you are persona non grata on Anson Street. Just sign the papers and live the life you've been living in my absence for so long."

I turned before she could see the tears in my eyes and walked out. I glanced back when I got to the stairs and she stood there in the doorway crying. I continued on and started walking toward the downtown hoping to get away before the local police nabbed me for the miscreant I pretended to be.

It was a long quiet flight back to Charleston the next day. The local police never showed up at the hotel and I left Vancouver with an unsettled mind and an even less certain future. No matter what I told myself or what she had done, I still loved Tammy in spite of an almost feral attraction and desire for Kirsten. Regardless, I knew the twenty year relationship with my wife and lover had just had the door shut on it...

There was still another pint in the growler as I went over the figures in the paperwork before me. My thirty years would hit in three months and if I kept going back out I'd be doing it for bank and not for pension growth. The medical wouldn't get any better at 80/20 so if I was a practical man I'd retire and live life as a city gentleman. I guess I wasn't all that practical; the love of the sea meant more at the end of the day and I committed to the company to go another year.

"Max, I'm sorry to hear the bad news about you and Tammy. You folks had a long run." Satch was being as sincere as he could be. He had tried it himself three times and it never took.

"Yeah, it's OK though. Both of us will get past it and go on with whatever is ahead of us."

I was lying; it wasn't OK as far as I was concerned. When I got back from Vancouver I painfully packed all of Tammy's belongings and had a truck deliver them to her sister's over at the bungalow as I told her I would. Sea captains don't cry or so the manual says. I was stoic and determined right up to where I had to empty her drawers and pack up the contents and then I wasn't anymore.

Those foolish bastards that imagine burning the bitch is some great soul cleansing experience have never loved a woman like this. Oh they talk about it, about getting their pound of flesh but none of them ever stand in the ashes of what they wrought. I stood in the empty room and cried like a fucking baby, a six foot two inch two hundred pound blubbering shell. Then I went to Henry's and got drunk.

That drunk pulled me out of the funk and I was back to putting one foot in front of the other with two more weeks before I shipped out again...

The Molly Seine was back under power and three days out of Charleston as I lay back in the bunk and caught up on ship news and personal email. Kirsten was sending me an occasional email inquiring of my well- being; we had discussed the confrontation over the phone at length one evening while she was in NYC.

It's not easy moving from one woman to another; in fact I'd say it is impossible. In our case Kirsten and I had a magnetism that neither of us could explain and she understood my heart was still in the clutches of another woman and whether by design or oversight, she gave us a wide berth. It only increased my fondness for her.

The weeks went by and I still had not heard from Tammy as far as signing the papers and after a short haul out of Rotterdam we took up a berth in Bremerhaven for a three day drop and load. Once secure I gave the crew 24 hours liberty and with the duty watch in place I went ashore for a personal quest of my own.

The taxi pulled up in front of the three story stucco townhouse on Helgolander Straße and as he pulled away I looked up at the house. A fleeting face was at the curtain briefly and when I pushed the bell the door opened wide before I released my finger.