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"Are you okay, Sweetie?" I asked, quite worried.
Mandy shook her head slowly, her breathing shallow. "Barry, I talked to her before we left home. Birds, bees, boys, and such...you know, a refresher course, and she seemed fine with everything. Seeing what I just saw, with those guys, those looks, and that skirt, I'm convinced that either my DNA has caught up with me or else the fickle finger of fate has fingered me."
Adrian paused his video game and asked, slowly, "What's a 'fickle finger of fate?" He was obviously trying to get the words right.
"Here, Adrian, hop in the car and put your seatbelt on, buddy," I said. "Let's see, fickle finger of fate? That's when...uhm, something odd happens that you didn't expect, particularly if it's related to something else that may have happened before."
"Oh," he said, restarting his video game to continue battling the Alien Baezzaroid Invaders. I closed the door so Mandy and I could speak as I walked her around to her side.
"Also known as poetic justice?" whispered Mandy, now blushing as she looked at me.
Probably not realizing it, she looped her arm around mine similar to the way Ceilly had been holding Chase's and then leaned her head against my shoulder just like Ceilly had done to him.
"Barry, Lord help me but my daughter, our sweet little girl, has grown up and turned into a freshman flirt just like me!"
The End
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Author's Notes:
Thanks for reading! Your feedback in the form of votes, favorites, comments, and follows is greatly appreciated.
Following are a few brief notes for the story as a whole for any who might be interested.
"Bewitched" starring the beautiful Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, a witch, and two Dicks (York and Sargent, both very nice guys) as Darrin, her mortal husband, was a TV show that ran from 1964 to 1972. Samantha had an interesting family with a variety of quaint and unusual names. That was referenced in Part 1.
Yes, though it wasn't intentional, it's another story with a James Garner reference! He played Jim Rockford, a private detective, on TV for six seasons from 1974 to 1980. As noted, he charged so much per day, but rarely collected it. This reference was in Part 2.
"Highway 20 Ride" was written by Wyatt Durrette and Zac Brown, and was released as a single by the Zac Brown Band in November 2009. It's about a dad (Durrette) making trips from Atlanta to the South Carolina state line to see his son after a divorce and about the love he has for the boy.
Finally, yes, for those with very sharp eyes and long memories, there are two "Laugh-In" references in the story, though that, too, was unplanned. The show ran from 1968 to 1973 and included Goldie Hawn in the cast. While the term "fickle finger of fate" had been around for a number of years before the show, it featured a recurring sketch called "The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award" given to government officials and others that the show's producers felt were 'deserving' of such a dubious recognition.
- COMMENTS
Anonymousabout 1 year ago4 chapters and no confrontation with Cathy? I dunno mate, Good story but lacking
a_reader_from_germanyalmost 2 years agoI just finished reading the four parts of this romance and enjoyed doing it. Just the fact that the protagonists are usually decent people who carry their respect and love towards each other into the bedroom sets these stories apart from the lot. Granted, Barry's motivation to try and reconnect with the cockteasing girl he had tutored a couple of decades ago remains somewhat nebulous, but I'd have to reread one or the other paragraph to be sure, somehow it feels as if there was something in the subtext giving us an explanation. Let's say he was realizing that there might have been potential for a relationship and that he is seeking some sort of closure as a result of her almost mysterious disappearing act. Even as these thoughts and ideas are likely delusional, it's still a possibility that, at a certain time in your life, you just might want to know for sure. The guy is in a safe place economically, but otherwise stalling,vso he is grasping at straws in a way.
This is well worth 5 stars anyhow. I try to remember other contributions I have read on Literotica and how those fare in regards of stars appointed to them. That way the rating becomes a no-brainer.
servant111over 2 years agoGreat story and well written Decent logic but the logic trail has some interesting shortcomings. The 24 year hiatus during which he numbly walks through an almost monastic ignorance of his two loves is utterly unexplained. The gap makes so little sense of that the reader stumbles and stops suspending disbelief. This gap breaks the flow and the stories internal logic collapses into a series of poorly related vignettes To installments 3 & 4 thus become disjointed and the reader loses track of the metanarrative connectivity. This forces the author to resort to deux ex machina way to often further disjointing the narrative flow.
Still enjoyable romance. 5 stars.
Anonymousover 2 years agoThere's the seven year itch. And then there is the 24 year burn. And that itch continues needing to be scratched throughout.
Good story and wonderful plain extra-ordinary human emotions. Fully and truly enjoyed it!
invisible_bridgesalmost 3 years agoThe sex scenes were a little more extensive than necessary. Are readers really fapping to detailed depictions of middle-aged geezers shagging?
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The narrative also missed an opportunity to really dig into Barry's motivations, though Mandy briefly touched upon it when she asked him why he was still single. Barry and Mandy were casual friends as college freshmen, and then lost contact for a quarter century. Isn't Barry's pursuit of Mandy a tad obsessive? Coming to grips with Barry's fixation on revisiting events and people from a long-gone past might have given this final chapter some additional dramatic charge. I missed a more visceral evocation of the setting of Pt.1, perhaps as dialogue reference or even scenic flashback, so that I as a reader could experience emotionally Barry's nostalgia, his need to go back and fix the past, to heal time's wound.
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Freshman year of college, when you leave home for the first time, where you get to actually live with your friends, where you invent your identity, is a time of great intensity and a kind of magic. The insight that this affecting story gave me is that there is a magic that s always there, at every moment of your life. It just becomes harder to discern it as you age. Barry found that magic again, and became a newly fresh man.
