No More Sweet Sorrows

It's the social event of the year if you're a member of the Hunt Valley Velo Club. Not really a club in the sense that we pay dues or hold club meetings or vote for officers. We are a loosely organized group of bicycle riders of all ages and stripes that, weather willing, ride a couple weekday evenings during daylight savings time.

That social event of the year is what we call the Summer Solstice Ride and Party. We hold it on the longest day of the year, or thereabouts, and because there's maximum daylight, it's our longest ride of the year, typically thirty-five miles. Afterward, we do a tailgate party in the parking lot where we started. It's a potluck affair. Everyone contributes a dish that either they make (most likely) or buy, and there are plenty of spirits to go with it. Bottles of Zinfandel, Reisling and Merlot, Yuengling, Corona and Heineken sit in ice-filled coolers next to tables set up on the lot.

But that wasn't the case this year. In this post-Covid era (well, almost post, depending if you've been vaccinated and/or where you live), Bradley Davies, one of our members, agreed to host the party at his house, a tastefully appointed, grey suburban abode, replete with driveway and two-car garage, set in a wooded cul-de-sac in a tony region of the county. For various reasons, not all Hunt Valley members signed up for the ride, only the party. In fact, only about ten of us, middle-agers to seniors, did. Half of us left Bradley's house at five in the afternoon, heading northwest through suburban and semi-rural regions of the county, one of the hilliest counties east of Westminster.

This solstice ride, like those in the past, was purely social: hammerheads need not apply unless they were willing to leave their egos at home. Our other rides could get quite competitive for the group's strongest riders, but not this one, where the pace was under fourteen miles an hour.

Bradley, a balding, heavyset, transplanted Brit in his early sixties, led the way because he knew the route. At age seventy, I, Jon Bechmann, was elder statesman, so to speak, but still one of the better hill climbers. Once a competitive power lifter standing just under five-eight and tipping the scales at close to two-hundred, I had dropped over thirty-five pounds in deference to being more efficient on the bike. Natalie, my lithe, sixty-something sister (who looked ten years younger) was there, along with Sofia, a petite, forty-something newbie. There was Ben Weber, still a speedster at age sixty-four, and Rhonda, his white-haired, fifty-something girlfriend, who wasn't so fast but had persuaded Ben to buy a tandem so they could ride together. Frank, a fifty-something lawyer from New York and Dennis, at forty-one, the youngest among us and a medical doctor, came along, and so did Kelsey Cadieux. More about her later. Much more.

The night was perfect for riding--temps in the seventies, with low humidity, a rare kind of summer weather for our region, known for its heat and humidity. The weather was also ideal for the party because most of it was held inside Bradley's spacious screened-in porch. When we arrived back at the house around seven-thirty, close to twenty Hunt Valley Velo members were already partying, overseen by Amelia, Bradley's gracious wife.

After racking my bike, I slipped on a pair of jeans over my spandex shorts, tossed aside my cycling shirt for a long-sleeve Baltimore Ravens jersey, and bagged my cycling cleats for cross-trainers. A shower would have been nice, but I wasn't about to ask our hosts for it. The low humidity had kept sweating to a minimum, so I didn't think I stunk that bad, if at all.

If there's a more refreshing drink than beer after a bike ride, I don't know about it. Thus, I grabbed a bottle of Yuengling from one of the coolers on the porch, then mingled among these cycling-obsessed folks, who like me, were either imbibing from bottles of sudsy brew or sipping the various wines that, like the food, was sitting on a long table in the dining room, a few steps from the porch. My packs of California Roll that I had stuffed into the Davies's stainless-steel fridge before the ride, were among all those bowls of delicious-looking salads, sandwiches and pastry.

Dimly lit by hanging lanterns, the wood porch, painted, like the house, a light gray, afforded a pastoral view of undeveloped land, its sole occupants being tall trees and thick green foliage. By anybody's reckoning, it was an ideal place to hold a summer party. I knew just about everyone there, including Russ Hanover and his wife Julie. Russ had been sidelined since May after a horrendous bike crash that had shattered his right elbow and required surgery. He sat with his healing but still sensitive elbow resting on a small pillow on his chair's armrest. Lanky, six-foot-two Russ had been among the club's strongest riders, strong enough to where he could ride with the elite of other clubs. Julie, like Russ, was retired but teaching cello part time, joked that Russ now got most of his exercise pulling up weeds from their lawn. Further discussion with Julie revolved around music, the cello concertos of Haydn, Boccherini and Dvorak.

Debra "monster calves" Krause, dressed in a cool Panama hat, yellow slacks and orange sneakers, showed up with her small brown pooch. Chic Dora Rosen, deeply tanned from a recent beach vacation, made an appearance, looking smashingly hot in tight black jeans and a low-cut blouse. Dora always reminded us of her birthday but refused to give her age. Based on subtle hints I'd heard over the years, she had to be either sixty or pushing it. Dora was the only one left of the group that I had joined exactly twenty years ago, and she made a big deal about it. Never married, she said, "Jon is the longest male relationship I've ever had." She puckered up her red-painted lips for an "anniversary" kiss, while we stood in the dining room with our arms around each other's shoulders, posing for Natalie's cell phone camera. Dora and my sister Natalie were prime examples of what the "right" genes and regular exercise could do for an aging woman's body.

I was single also (divorced), single and feeling that weird juxtaposition that many fit men my age feel, old and young at the same time. Old, or at least too old to couple-up with a much younger woman, yet young enough in body and spirit to do so, not to mention strong and fit, youthful looking in physicality and sexual energy. Perhaps it's part illusion, part reality that such a man could get something going with a younger woman if only she could get past the graying hair (or baldness), the white whiskers and the age number itself. Don't kid yourselves, you septuagenarians, age is more than JUST a number.

I mentioned Sofia. After the ride, busty Sofia slipped into cut-off jeans and a tight orange and black pull-over. She looked to be around five-foot-two, well proportioned, with a boss (an archaic adjective, I know, but I still use it) pair of legs, especially her hamstrings (athletic dudes like me notice anatomical specifics like hamstrings). She was on the quiet side, perhaps because she was from another country, somewhere in Europe based on her heavy accent. She had dark hair and eyes and thin lips that rarely stretched for a smile. She did manage to smile after I had helped pump up her tires before the ride and then appeared to flirt with me at the party. She doesn't know my age, I thought.

For me, the big surprise, sort of, was Kelsey Cadieux. Ben Weber had told me she might show (she had relatives in Maryland that she visited about once a year) but he wasn't sure. I hadn't seen her in five years, not since she had moved back to her native Seattle. Like Dora, she had never married. Also like Dora, she looked great for her age, mid-fifties I was guessing. I had never asked, nor had she ever volunteered to tell. Some women looked ridiculous wearing their hair long in a futile attempt to look years younger. Not Kelsey, whose dirty-blond, Lady Godiva locks dropped to the middle of her back. The skin on her face still had this fine sheen, just the way I remembered it, and she looked like she hadn't gained a pound in five years.

As noted, she was along for the ride, but I didn't see her until miles into the route because she rode in a sub-group that had left Bradley's place about twenty minutes later. She and her cohorts took a shortcut, which enabled them to catch up to us. When our two groups stopped to chat, she wheeled her rented hybrid bicycle up to mine and gave me a big hug. "Jon, how are you?!"

She smelled great, despite perspiring--perhaps even because of it. She had her hair tied under her helmet and, as always, she looked hot in spandex. "Doing well," I said. "Enjoying retirement, pursuing my passions and still searching for the meaning of life." She laughed, because that last part was an inside joke between us. Years before, when she was in the club, we'd engage in these philosophical discussions about "meaning." It took us awhile before we realized that we couldn't come to a definitive answer. When we began riding again, she did remind me about the Dalai Lama's take on life's meaning--to be happy and useful. We rode side-by-side, catching up on each other's lives. A graphic artist, she now worked part-time, and had joined a cycling group in Seattle. I didn't ask about her love life, nor did she ask about mine.

In case you might be wondering, Kelsey and I were more than just riding buddies years ago, during the Obama administration. We had a past, as they say. We had a connection, chemistry--yes, those twin clichés used when attraction works both ways, as it did for us. Those philosophical discussions, with some politics thrown in, led to romance, played out in our cars after a ride, when the other riders had left. Kelsey didn't want to take it further, didn't want me coming back to her place or her to mine. Actually, she wanted to but backed away because she knew her move to Maryland was temporary and thought getting involved further would lead to heartbreak. "I don't want to date you, but I do want to get physical with you," is what she told me.

I always had the feeling that she had experienced some sort of big hurt (or hurts) years earlier. I probed and prodded, but got no further than vague answers and not so subtle hints to cease and desist. She was an odd duck--I knew that, and also knew, or at least sensed, that she had problems with intimacy. But she was so pretty and funny, too, as well as bright and articulate. I wanted more, but was willing to play by her rules because I loved spending time with her, riding with her and getting "physical" with her, even though our playtime was confined to my Honda Crosstour. After slipping off our riding duds, she'd straddle my lap, riding my cock as I danced my tongue over her smooth tummy and breasts, small but firm. Sometimes, I'd fold the rear seats down (more room, more positions). She didn't hold back either, letting her body do all it could do in that small space, expressing herself freely with her voice. Indeed, nobody within earshot of the car would have had to guess what was going on.

We didn't always have sex. In fact, we mostly just smooched and held each other. I loved her but never said. She hinted that she loved me but never said. It was an odd relationship to say the least and one, save for a few emails, that ended when she returned to Seattle.

Which leads me back to the party. After our chat on the road, our sub-groups split up again. My group rode faster, so I arrived at the party before Kelsey did, grabbed that Yuengling and chatted with Russ and Dora and Julie, et al. Kelsey arrived less than a half-hour later, changed into a dress designed with three broad stripes, navy, green and gray. "The official colors of the Seattle Seahawks, you know," she told me. I didn't know, nor did I know she was a football fan. "See, that's one thing you didn't know about me," she said, wearing a mock, smart-ass kind of grin. In fact, there were lots of things I didn't know about her, but I didn't go there. We were there to have fun, not delve into weighty matters, personal or otherwise.

We piled food on our paper plates and mingled with other people. Kelsey literally screamed for joy when she saw Crissy Dewar. The women, who hadn't seen each other since Kelsey left Maryland, embraced and spent the next few minutes playing "catch-up." Kelsey and Crissy once rode a lot together because they were evenly paced, even though Crissy was a lot heavier. I hadn't seen Crissy in a few years and, from her weight gain, I got the feeling she had been off the bike for quite a while. Crissy was there with Larry Porter, her skinny boyfriend of close to ten years. Physically, they always looked like the proverbial odd couple to me--skinny, super-fit Larry and obese Crissy. For much of the evening, they sat on one of the sofas on the porch, laughing it up with everyone else. If you didn't know them, I thought, you'd be hard-pressed to think they were an item.

Meanwhile, the people that had cycled earlier, made their hunger known, returning for seconds and even thirds. The beer and wine flowed, the cycling stories, both real, embellished, and probably imagined, passed back and forth and cell phone cameras clicked away. Dora snapped a few photos of me and Kelsey, standing arm in arm. She was leaving for Seattle the next day, she told me. "Which still gives us plenty of time to talk," she said as the party was winding down. "Privately," she emphasized. Then she added, "By the way, do you still have that Honda Crosstour?"

I did, and it was parked directly in front of one of Bradley's garage doors. Bradley and Amelia either had no outside security lights or didn't bother to turn them on. Whatever the case, it was pitch-black outside their house. No exaggeration, pitch-black, with no street lights within a quarter mile or so. It was so dark that we had to wade zombie-like into the darkness for fear we'd trip or bang into something as we groped our way to my car. Except for the few seconds of light from the car's roof when I opened the doors, darkness continued to envelope us as we sat on the front seats. "You wanted privacy, you got it here," I said.

"It's darker here than when we used to fool around on the parking lot after those evening rides," she said.

Darker and quieter, much quieter. That parking lot sat near an interstate highway, with only a row of hedges between it and the road. "Kelsey, I can still hear the sound of the cars whooshing by, mixed with the sound of our heavy breathing," I said.

"Oh my, yes," she said. "But you know, it kind of made things more exciting."

I began stroking her hair, her fine, silky hair that hadn't yet turned gray. Either that, or she did a good job in hiding it. Not that I was about to ask. I did ask this: "So, along those lines, wouldn't it be even more exciting if we fooled around here?"

She chuckled. "Well, maybe, you naughty, daring boy, you. I mean, we're parked in someone's driveway." She paused, then said, "I missed you, Jon. I missed riding with you, talking with you and yes, riding on top and underneath you."

"We had quite a ride together, Kelsey. On several levels."

"Yes, we did." She tucked her hands under my Ravens jersey and began playing with my chest. "Man, you're still solid as a rock."

"Thanks, I work at it."

"And it shows." She withdrew her hands and continued. "You didn't know I was a Seattle Seahawks fan. A minor detail, but there are other things about my life that aren't so minor, things that I never talked about with you."

"Okay." I didn't ask, thinking it better to let this flow where ever she wanted to take it.

"You knew I had never been married," she continued. "But what you didn't know is that I was engaged years ago. Just a few weeks from our wedding date, Jim, my fiancé, contracted a deadly form of meningitis. And...that was it." She looked away, taking a moment to compose herself. "Anyway, so now you know."

I wanted so much to comfort her but wasn't sure how. It was one of those awkward situations where you want to say something that might help but hesitate for fear of saying the wrong thing. "I'm so sorry, Kelsey. Why didn't you..." I stopped there.

"Why didn't I tell you until now? I don't know, I guess maybe I felt it was too personal. I mean, we were cycling buddies, albeit with benefits, but basically cycling buddies. And, you know, cycling buddies only get so close."

She was right. Cycling buddies rarely get that close, form the sort of tight bond one does with close friends met years ago. Cycling relationships normally don't last beyond the bike, the strongest common denominator. There are exceptions--I can name quite a few--but that's generally how it goes. When one stops riding, their connection to those bike buddies is usually severed.

I continued. "Yes, I know. So why are you telling me now?"

She brushed away a tear. "Maybe because I'm leaving and I feel it's safe to tell you." She blinked her beautiful light blue eyes, then managed to smile. "I know what you're thinking. Same old Kelsey, right? Avoids getting close to people. A least now you know one of the reasons why."

I gave her a re-assuring kiss. "I didn't judge you then and I won't now. Well, other than you're a Seahawks fan," I teased. "I mean, come on."

"Hey, I was a closet Ravens fan for the two or three years I was here," she said. "I wanted to keep it in the closet, least it would get out to my friends back home. Bet you didn't know that either."

"You're right. You kept an air-tight closet on that one, too."

It was close to ten and the last few cars parked nearby were pulling out. "It's getting late," Kelsey said. I figured she was ready to call it a night, and she'd drive away in her rented vehicle parked halfway on the grass a couple tenths of a mile up the glorified driveway of a road that ran by the three properties in the cul-de-sac. But then she said, "Alone at last. Alone on this beautiful night in your big hatchback. Bradley and Amelia are probably cleaning up. They'll never see us in this kind of dark."

"Not to be presumptuous," I said, "but it sounds like you're okay with my fooling around idea."

She put her arms around me. "I am onboard, yes. Sounds like a splendid idea."

I pulled her as close as I could over the center console, enjoying the soft warmth of those tender lips I once knew so well. We necked for almost a full minute before I pulled away and said, "Just like old times."

She nodded, looked like she was about to cry again. "Jon, I never told you this either. Never told you that I fell in love with you at some point during our relationship."

"And I never told you because you never told me." We started to laugh. Then I asked, "So now what?"

"Now what? I say let's resume where we left off. And perhaps take it to another level. If you know what I mean. And I'm thinking you do."

We got back into it, heavier and more intense than before. The contours of her firm body, the sweet, sweaty scent of her, brought back fond memories. Her kisses weren't so much sweeter than wine, as the song goes, but sweet like wine--Reisling, if my taste buds were right. "You feel so good and smell so good," I whispered.

"And you take my breath away," she said, breathing as if she were climbing Piney Grove, one of the steeper hills on one of our cycling routes. She put her hand over my crotch. "I feel something."

"I'm sure you do, and it's been like that for the last ten minutes."

"And I've been wet for just as long, if not longer." She lifted her butt off the seat, tucked her hands under her dress and slipped off her panties. "Make love to me, Jon."

It was risky business, fooling around while parked in someone's driveway, not to mention irreverent. If Bradley or Amelia came out and saw us...Well, I wasn't sure what they'd do, though I doubted they'd appreciate it. They were nice people. Even so, I didn't think their graciousness extended to letting their guests make whoopee just steps from their door. But it was pitch-black and it appeared that they were in for the night. Besides, I couldn't resist.