For My 50th Birthday

Leona and I honeymooned in Cancun where our love of adventurous sexual antics and escapades led us to the seduction of two very handsome young bellhops at our hotel. Neither was more than twenty-years-old, but they both turned out to be a sexual god! We had a wild foursome, Leona and I swapping big, hard cocks over and over. It was the first time I'd had sex with a man in nearly a decade, and at first, I found myself wondering why I'd abandoned men in the first place! Then things took a very precarious turn about two months later when I found myself pregnant.

Talk about a mid-life crisis!

In the end however, Mother Nature determined in her infinite wisdom that a third round of motherhood was not in my best interest, and thus I miscarried just ten weeks into the pregnancy. Much to even my surprise, losing the baby was very hard on for I had begun to love the idea of having another baby. Leona on the other hand, was more than thrilled to have dodged this bullet. From that time on, I began to have doubts about our marriage and our relationship. Overnight, Leona seemed to have become someone I didn't really know. And though our life went on and we were seemingly happy, I was still troubled in that perhaps I really did not truly know my own wife.

Then one night in June 2016, a year into our marriage and just before my forty-sixth birthday, I learned exactly who she truly was!

It was nearing eleven that Saturday night and I'd been on the road for several hours. I'd been attending a seminar and lecture weekend for work in San Antonio, which is about 200 miles west of Houston. I wasn't due home until the next afternoon, but I'd just had enough. So, I headed home early and instead of letting Leona know, I thought I'd slip into bed and surprise her when she got home later that night from the bar. I even picked up some flowers.

I pulled in the driveway, and I was rather surprised to see Leona's car parked there. Quickly turning off the engine, I climbed out of the car and practically tiptoed through the unlocked backdoor. No sooner did I come inside did I hear moaning coming from the living room.

And it was a man's moaning! My heart began to pound.

Leona and I had always agreed that if we wanted to have sex with another person that we should both agree to it and do it together. But that wasn't my problem now. My problem now was that the man I was hearing sounded just like Seth. He had just turned eighteen, graduated from high school and was due to leave for North Carolina next month.

As I moved silently through the kitchen and into the living room, I got the shock of my life. The room was dark except for a fire burning in the fireplace. Seth sat in the recliner, naked as the day he was born. His head was laid back and his eyes were shut. And there on her knees between Seth's spread legs and every bit as naked as he, was Leona. Her head was bobbing furiously up and down on Seth's groin.

My wife was blowing my son.

I honestly cannot express in words what I was feeling or thinking at that moment. I do remember that it took all my mortal strength to hold down the vomit. Without so much as a peep, I switched on the ceiling fan light and its brightness flooded the room. Instantly, they were both looking at me with expressions of sheer terror and surprise. Next, they were both fumbling frantically to their feet and trying to cover themselves.

I don't remember anything that was said, I simply shut off the light, turned and walked back out to my car where I collected my luggage. I came back inside and by now, they were both dressed. They both spoke frantically and pleaded desperately, but I heard nothing. I completely ignored them both as I marched to my bedroom only to get another horrific shock. All the sex candles were set about and burning, as was the incense while the bed that Leona and I shared was in complete disarray. The sheets were damp, and the putrid odor of sex hung heavy in the air. Clearly, Leona and Seth had fucked in our bed.

Now I did vomit.

I spent the rest of the night packing Leona's things and in the morning, ordered her to leave, which she did without argument. I then burned those sheets and bought a new bed. The next day, I hired a lawyer and filed for divorce. I also ordered Seth to pack up and go stay with his father until he left for school.

Long story short, my divorce from Leona was finalized in October 2016. The sports bar and grille she owned closed down not long afterward and I've never seen her again. That was the easy part. The hard part was mending my relationship with Seth. In many ways, it's still an ongoing process to this day. On the one hand, he is my son; my first born and I love him with all my heart. But on the other hand, what he did was devastating to me on so many levels.

As the whole truth came out, I learned that that night was not the first time he and Leona had had sex. The first had been the day of his eighteenth birthday while I was at work. And while Leona openly confessed to having seduced him, Seth was still a grown man, and he should've known better. Plus, she was my wife and his stepmother. Not only was it adulterous, but borderline incestuous. She was betraying and being unfaithful to his own mother and he willingly went along with it and participated in it. I had raised him better than that, or at least, so I had thought.

For his part, Cody was despondent. He had adored Leona; loved her like a mother and felt so horribly betrayed by her and by his brother. It was awful when my lawyer had to drill him to make certain that nothing sexual had occurred between him and Leona; particularly since he was underage. Thankfully, nothing had. Both he and Leona testified under oath to that. But on a more tragic side, it has virtually destroyed the brotherly relationship between my sons. They haven't spoken to or had anything to do with each other since. I can only pray that there is truth to the old saying:

"Time heals all wounds."

By my forty-ninth birthday in July 2019, Seth had been selected in the third round of the NFL draft by the Kansas City Chiefs. He won a spot on the team and signed a big contract. Though three years had passed, and many wounds had healed, mother and son still had some things to work out. But we were getting there. He was my son, I loved him and was so proud of him.

He'd made a terrible mistake.

Cody was in his second year at the Naval Academy and had achieved the highest cadet ranking in his class, both academically and militarily.

For myself, I was in the best physical shape of my entire life. I had taken up running in 5K and 10K races and was in training to run in my first full marathon in January. I'd also taken a new job with a Cosmetic Dentistry and Oral Surgery practice which came with better hours and a substantial pay increase. As a reward, I bought myself a brand-new, cherry red Dodge Challenger with a 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat Redeye V-8 and loaded to the gills with every bell and whistle you could imagine.

I named her Vexy, which is short for Vixen.

The year 2020 began wonderfully for me. I completed the full twenty-six miles of the Chevron Houston Marathon in just over four hours and finished in the top 100 for my age group. Then in early February, I found myself in Miami, seated in a VIP box suite high above the field at Hard Rock Stadium along with my brother Phillip, his wife Laura and their twelve-year-old daughter Taylor and their nine-year-old son, Tyler. Together, we watched Seth and the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVI.

My phone was soon raging with calls and texts of congratulations! One of the first was from my sister Vanessa, who lived in Seattle. She and her husband Randy and their identical twin daughters, seventeen-year-olds Kelsey and Jessica had not been able to make the trip to Miami. They had planned to, but just a couple of days before the game, they'd all come down with a bug and were not feeling well enough to travel.

Two days later, Randy and Jessica were both rushed to the hospital and then into ICU where they were both put on a ventilator. Jessica died that night and Randy the very next day. Both had had their lungs devoured by a virus. By that time, the whispers of a new and deadly coronavirus were already spreading across the country and throughout the world. And it soon became clear that my brother-in-law and my niece were among the first victims of what came to be known as Covid-19.

Neither Vanessa and Kelsey were ill enough to require hospitalization and in the end, both recovered from what surely too, was Covid-19. But the loss of a husband and a father as well as a daughter and a sister completely devastated them. Me too.

By mid-March 2020, I, like hundreds of millions of others around the globe, found myself out of work as the world completely shut down and we all became prisoners in our own homes due to the lockdowns. I was finally able to return to work in early June 2020, but business was extremely slow, and I had to dress every day in a literal hazmat suit. It was miserable.

When July 2020 arrived and my fiftieth birthday loomed, the plans I'd made with a group of friends late in 2019 to travel to Europe and take one of those Viking River cruises down the Rhine were completely shattered by the pandemic. And as the tenth of July 2020 dawned, I spent the day eating one shit sandwich after another.

First, my daily Covid test. It was negative, but such a pain in the ass, and nose. Next, with a new spike in Covid cases, I learned that our office was shutting down again for an undisclosed amount of time, effective immediately. Arriving home around noon, I got a FaceTime call from Seth. He had just sustained a serious knee injury during the Chiefs summer minicamp and was going to need surgery. The doctors were concerned that the injury might be severe enough to be career ending. He was so distraught and the look on his face broke my heart. Despite all that had happened between us, he was still my baby boy, and nothing will break a mother's heart more than to see her son with a broken heart.

No sooner did I get off the phone with Seth did Cody call. He and several of his fellow cadets had tested positive for Covid-19 and were in quarantine. Though he said he felt fine, several of his fellow cadets were becoming quite ill. I told him to please keep me posted and he promised he would. And what was worse for both the boys was that their father and their stepmother, who they both adored, were both in ICU battling Covid. They would both recover.

After I got off the phone with Cody, I lied down on the sofa and tried to take a nap. I was nearly asleep when my phone rang again. This time it was my sister Vanessa, informing me that my niece Kelsey had tried to commit suicide. The loss of her father and sister, the strain and stress of the lockdowns, her mother's grief and being out of work to boot, money getting extremely tight and severe cabin fever had just overwhelmed her.

Happy Fucking Birthday to me!! Jesus Fucking Christ!

I leapt up off the sofa, hurried out the back door and dove into my swimming pool with all my clothes still on. I swam laps for several minutes before my saturated clothes began to weigh me down. So, I stopped long enough to yank them all off, bra and panties included, then tossed them up on the side and continued to swim totally nude in the middle of the afternoon.

Who gives a fuck anymore?

I finally came back inside a couple of hours later, dropped my soaking wet clothes in the washer and then headed to the bathroom for a shower. Glancing at the clock, I noted it was five. Five o'clock on my fiftieth birthday! And up to this point, the worst birthday of my entire life. Only seven more hours to go and it would be over. Thank God!

Taking a long hot shower, I started to feel better. Then out of nowhere, I heard myself whisper:

"Ashley Christina Sloane."

I couldn't remember the last time I'd said her name or even thought about her. But the next thing I knew, I was repeating her name over and over as I washed my hair and body. Soon my mind had taken me back ten years to my fortieth birthday and every wondrous and passionate detail came back to me with such vivid clarity. Oh, what I wouldn't give to live it all again. It was a different time and a different world. Literally! And right now, I needed it to be my fortieth birthday again. Just then, another thought struck me like a speeding train!

The letter!

I immediately sprang from the shower and wrapped my body and hair up in towels. I then darted out of the bathroom, through my bedroom and across the hall to my office. Snatching my Bible off the bookcase, I retrieved the picture of Ashley and her beautiful letter. Unfolding it promptly, my eyes darted down the page to the post-script. It was blurry, for I wasn't wearing my contacts. Not that I needed to read it for the memory of what it said had come back in full force with almost divine lucidity.

P.S. -- I want to make a pact with you now. I know this might seem terribly corny and cliché, but I don't care. Again, I have no idea what the future may hold in store for either of us. But let us promise to each other that if we are both still alive, single, and available on the night of July 10, 2020 -- ten years from now, that we will meet at the very same CiCi's Pizza at 7:00pm. And I will be your gift for your 50^th birthday and you will then be my gift for my 29^th birthday.

I looked down at the large digital clock on my desk that read in bright white:

5:40PM 10 JUL 2020

I pressed the letter to my damp chest and sighed deeply. I stood motionless for a moment, my mind conjuring up every available image of Ashley and those wondrous two nights we shared together ten years ago. I folded up the letter and picture, slipped them back in my Bible and placed it back on the bookshelf. With a radiant smile, I made my way back to the bathroom and stared myself down in the mirror for a long moment. Then I spoke to myself in the mirror:

"You know you want to, so just go ahead and go. Fuck it! What've you got to lose? If nothing else, for the next hour and a half or so, you have something to be hopeful about. Having hope! That's sorely lacking in life these days."

I then proceeded to blow dry and brush my still shoulder length platinum blonde hair and put on make-up. After that, I went immediately to my dresser and without the slightest pretense of thought, I slipped braless and panty less into the same white pair of khaki shorts and the same tight red tank top I'd worn that night ten years ago. While I didn't have the same pair of flipflops anymore, I had an almost identical newer pair.

Snapping up my purse and my phone, I checked the time:

6:20PM

It'll be close, but I'll make it.

I darted out of the room, down the hall, across the living room, through the kitchen and out the backdoor. Seconds later I was behind Vexy's wheel and on my way. To what, I had not the slightest idea. But regardless of anything, this just felt so right.

Thanks to the pandemic, traffic is so much lighter these days and as such, I gave Vexy full throttle. Her engine purred so smoothly but the sheer power of it was so great that I could feel her vibrations teasing my loins. And it was getting me so hot and wet.

What do you know? My car is a lesbian too!

I had this very subtle but compelling feeling that this was exactly what I should be doing. I couldn't explain it, nor did I believe for an instant that I would be reunited with Ashley. Still, I felt surprisingly free. For a moment, everything was right with the world; or at least, in the world within my own mind. But all that vanished when I happen to glance in the rear-view mirror and saw the police cruiser with its blue and red lights flashing coming up behind me.

Perfect! Just fucking perfect. Way to go, you crazy bitch! Happy fucking birthday!

I pulled over to the side of the road and the police cruiser pulled in behind me.

"Put your vehicle in park, roll down your window, turn off the engine and place your hands on the steering wheel please," a stern female voice came out of the PA speaker on the cruiser.

I did as she instructed and then watched in the side-view mirror as the cruiser door opened and the police officer got out. Shutting her door, she placed a hand on her sidearm and strode confidently but cautiously up to my open window. Even though she was still at a distance, there was something familiar about her, though I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Good evening ma'am," the female officer began in a remarkably familiar voice. "Montgomery County Sheriff's Department. May I see your driver's license please?"

"It's in my purse," I said.

"That's fine," she replied. "Just put your purse on your lap where I can see it please."

I grabbed my purse off the passenger seat, dug out my wallet and fished out my driver's license. I then handed it out the window to the officer.

"Here you go," I stated.

"Thank you," she said.

I then waited as the woman studied my license. It seemed to take much longer than would be considered usual. Then suddenly, she handed my license back to me.

"Could you step out of your vehicle for a moment please ma'am?"

"Oh! Okay! Do I? Should I put on my mask?"

"No, that won't be necessary."

With a shrug and a sigh, I opened the door and climbed out of Vexy, closing her door behind me.

"Is there some sort of problem," I asked.

The officer was several inches shorter than me, but very shapely; mysteriously tempting and quite lean. She wore the standard police officer uniform of navy blue short-sleeve shirt that allowed me to see the muscle-clad yet still alluringly feminine canons that were her arms, and the navy-blue slacks she wore surprisingly accentuated her marvelously shaped hips and thighs. Her upper body was bulging and bulky; no doubt due to the body armor she wore beneath her shirt. Her hair was very dark and pulled back in a ponytail. Her face covered by a large, black fabric mask.

"No ma'am," she replied softly. "No problem at all." She slowly raised her hands to her ears and removed her mask. "I just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday."

Her face was leaner now; narrower with an overall mildly warn more mature appearance. The cheeks were now slightly sunken, better defining her alluring facial bone structure. But when those full and pouty lips filled with that radiant, pearly white smile and I looked again into those deep, dark, and captivating eyes, there was no mistaking it!

It was Ashley!

Instantly my whole body was quaking, and my heart detonated like a nuclear bomb. My chest was heaving faster than Vexy's pistons. My eyes bulged and flooded with tears as I slapped my hands over my mouth.

"Oh my God!!!" My squeal muffled by my hands. "Ashley!"

"Hello Jennifer," she replied in a cracking voice, her smile beaming as her eyes welled with tears.

"Oh my God," I squealed again. "I don't believe it."

"You don't believe it," she gushed; tears now streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh baby," I cried out as I stepped toward her with my arms open and then suddenly stopped. She too, stepped forward and stopped. It looked like we were trying to dance. Finally, I said: "Ah, I'm not really sure about the protocol here. Not only about Covid, but about hugging an officer on duty."

"Let me make it simple for you," Ashley snapped. "If you don't hug me, I'm going to arrest you."

"Yes ma'am," I replied, fighting the urge to salute her.

"And in regard to Covid, I'm tested every day."

"So am I."

"Negative," we said simultaneously.

Instantly, we were in each other's arms, holding on for dear life. Yes, it was body armor. And my God, when did she get so strong? The muscular canons now holding me so possessively were also crushing the life out of me. But I didn't care, it felt so wonderful for all I truly felt flowing from them was her love. I felt so safe and protected.