Reunion

He had been here for...what? 15 minutes? Not even, J.T. thought, as he glanced at his watch. But he already knew it was a bad idea.

J.T. scanned the sea of faces for someone, anyone, familiar, but all he saw were middle-aged faces. Maybe he knew some of them, but after 20 years how he could he tell? In 1985, J. Arthur Younger High School had been the center of his universe. But now it was just an alien presence that brought back memories of a time when life was filled with unlimited promise, a promise that had been so cruelly broken.

When the invitation to the 20th reunion had arrived, J.T. had barely glanced at it before tossing it into the pile of refinance solicitations and "You May Already Be A Winner!" envelopes destined for the recycling bin. It was only to put an end to the months of nagging by his friends Carl and Neil that he finally consented to go, but he had insisted on going by himself. Partly so that he could escape early and partly because riding here with his friends and their wives would have just intensified his sense of being alone.

But where the hell were they? One drink, J.T. thought. If they aren't here when I'm done with it then I'm out of here.

"Bartender, I'll have..."

"Hon, could I have another tequila and..."

J.T. turned to the sound of the voice that had mingled with his. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. You go first. And let me get it for you, OK?"

"I'm glad to see you're still nice to me," the auburn-haired woman said with a smile.

Maybe she had mistaken him for someone else. Or maybe he just couldn't remember who she was. Either way it was awkward. "Forgive me, but I...I don't..."

"It's all right, J.T., I wouldn't have expected you to recognize me. I'm Angelica."

That was no help. The only Angelica he knew in high school was a little tomboy named Angelica Morretti.

"Morretti," she added.

"Oh my God, Angelica! You look so...so..."

"So much like a girl?" Angelica said as she raised one sculpted eyebrow.

"No, no...I meant..."

J.T.'s embarrassed stammer was overridden by Angelica's full-throated laugh. "No worries. I grew my hair, I put on the 'little black dress' that all the magazines say you simply must have and I learned to actually look at people when I talk to them. Hey, we all change."

Those weren't the only changes, J.T. noticed. In high school, Angelica's figure could best be described as "wiry." Now, though she was still on the slender side, there were curves. Definite curves. And gone were the pink-tinted glasses that had hidden Dutch chocolate eyes speckled with tiny gold flecks.

"Yes, we do, but your changes are better than mine, J.T. finally answered, tapping the dusting of gray at his temple.

"Some people go through some hard changes. J.T. I'm very sorry about Monica."

Monica had been part of the unlimited promise of high school. She was neither the prettiest girl in school nor the most popular, but she was close in both areas. Monica and J.T. had fallen in love in their senior year and never fallen out of it. They were, everyone agreed, the perfect couple. Perfection ended three years ago when an SUV ran a red light and turned Monica's Honda into a twisted-metal coffin.

"Oh. I...I didn't...um... realize you knew. Thank you."

Laying her hand across J.T.'s, Angelica stared up into his eyes. "I didn't mean to bring back painful memories. I just wanted you to know that I always thought she was the kindest, nicest girl at Younger. You deserved to be together because you were the same way."

"Me? I never thought I was..."

"Ssssh! Listen to me. You were popular, good-looking, one of the 'Big Three' on the basketball team. Yet you still always said hi to me, took time to talk with me in the hall, even asked me to dance at Homecoming. It meant a lot."

A blush crawl across J.T.'s fair features and he searched his brain for something to break the silence that was becoming awkward. Then he heard that laugh again.

"Hey, basta!, as my grandma used to say. Enough. No more serious and melancholy. How about I ask you to dance this time?"

J.T. accepted the offer delightedly. Who was this woman who held his hand as they walked out to the dance floor and curled into his arms once they got there? Who was this vibrant, confident creature that had once been shy little Angelica Morretti? Who was this sexy... Even the thought of the word jolted him. He hadn't thought of a woman as sexy since Monica died. Even more of a jolt was the realization that his body obviously found her sexy as well.

God, this was so embarrassing! She was going to be able to feel what was happening to him. Even though the song wasn't nearly over, J.T. tried to step back from her, but Angelica's fingers pressed firmly against the back of his neck, holding him close. Those chocolate eyes bored into his and then he heard, "Don't. It's OK. It's very much OK."

For the first time since he had arrived that night, the flood of high school memories came pouring in. But not in a good way. He felt awkward, gawky, insecure in the way that every teenager tries to hide. "This isn't why I came here, Angelica, or why I danced with you."

"Really? It's the only reason I came here. This place doesn't hold great memories for me, but it was worth coming back, even if it was just for one more dance. But if you want honesty, I'll admit that when I thought about tonight I thought about more than just dancing. So, no games. No 'will she or won't she?' If you want me, I'm yours. If you don't, I'll be disappointed. But I'll understand, and this reunion will still be the best memory I'll ever have of Younger."

Angelica waited for her words to sink in, then smiled and said, "And don't look so shocked. I'm not a 17-year-old virgin anymore. C'mon, take a walk with me."

J.T. took her hand and followed her out the door. Not because her words had been arousing or flattering -- though they most certainly were -- but because there was a tenderness in them that reached parts of him he didn't think still existed.

In a perfect world, they would have held hands as they strolled along tree-lined walks that wound through brick buildings designed when architecture spoke of art and romance. But Younger wasn't like that. It was a '70s pile of concrete pods and quads. Industrial chic without the chic. Still, that made no difference when Angelica stopped in front of the door to the classroom where Mrs. Creehan had taught English Lit to her and J.T. so many years before and said, "I think this is the part where you're supposed to kiss me."

And he did. Hesitantly at first, tasting the hint of lime on her mouth. But the hesitancy evaporated as he felt the softness of her lips play along his. For once, he stopped thinking and started feeling. Felt the tip of her tongue touch his, felt her fingertips settle at base of his neck, felt her softness pressed against his chest and his hardness pressed between her thighs.

There was desire in Angelica's moan, but also relief. She had played this scene out in her head a hundred times, but was never confident that she would be able to make J.T. actually let go and respond to her. But now there was no doubt about the response, the passion in his kiss, the urgency in the way he flattened his hand against the small of her back and pulled her to him. She was free now, free to take this wherever it would go, and reached out to fumble blindly with the latch on the classroom door.

The kiss that had begun so tenderly had evolved into an expression of pure hunger that neither was willing to break as they stumbled clumsily through the door. Angelica was the first to show how far that hunger had gone, reaching between them to curl her fingers around the cock straining against J.T.'s pants. She felt more than heard him mew into her mouth as she squeezed and stroked the length of it, finally stopping just long enough to pull down his zipper so she could touch him the way she wanted to, bare and hard and so very warm.

Angelica caressed the tip with her palm before circling her fingers around the ridge just behind the head. Though she hadn't thought it possible, she wanted him -- wanted it -- even more now than she had 20 years ago. She reveled in what her hand was doing, pumping back and forth over his shaft, feeling his cock twitching, throbbing. Dizzied by her own heat, Angelica reacted slowly to the feel of J.T. trying to pull away from her. "Wait! No! Why?" And then she knew as the thick, sticky fluid coated her hand.

Too late to pull away now, J.T. relaxed and let Angelica continue her caresses until she had emptied him. "I'm sorry," he said, "that's not how I meant for it to end."

Angelica studied his sad face and grinned mischievously. "End? We've barely started."

Giving J.T.'s softening cock a final squeeze, Angelica nudged him back until he was perched on the edge of what had been Mrs. Creehan's desk, then slipped the straps off her shoulders and felt the silk caress her bare skin as it slid to the floor. The look on J.T.'s face told her that her instincts had been right. "The magazines said I must have little black dress; they didn't say anything about underwear."

Even in the semi-darkness of the classroom, the view of her naked, athletic body would have revived J.T. quickly enough, but Angelica had no intention of waiting. Besides, the short cut would be much more enjoyable. Dropping to her knees, she urged J.T. to stand so she could tugs his pants free. The movement brought his cock level with Angelica's face and before he could sit back on the desk her mouth had enveloped him.

She loved the feel of his cock in her mouth this way, soft, the only way that she would be able to have all of it. It was still tart and sticky as she sucked at it, the taste an exciting reminder of the effect her hand had on him. Angelica rolled her tongue around it and used the tip to tease the wrinkled bit of foreskin. She could feel his cock stiffening...no, not stiffening exactly...thickening though, coming to life in her mouth, and she puckered her lips in a tight ring around it. With each bob of her head, Angelica could feel J.T.'s cock lengthening, swelling, the skin pulling back to expose the head to her fluttering tongue.

Soon it was more than her mouth could hold and she brought her hand up to stroke the part of the shaft that been forced from her mouth. Her other hand cradled his balls, kneading them gently, as her mouth nursed his cock back to the same hardness that he had tried to hide from her on the dance floor, the hardness that she had dreamed of having inside here.

Urging J.T. back onto the desk, Angelica climbed over him, straddling him, ready to make that dream come true. His cock was already slick from what her mouth had done to it, but that was no match for the slipperiness she spread over it as she pressed the head against her pussy. "Now," she thought. "Finally." And lowered her hips, taking the full length of him into in one deliciously slow, exquisite stroke.

J.T. arched his back and pushed up against her, feeling her pussy clench on him as she ground her clitoris against the base of his cock. Angelica settled into a rhythm as she rode him. She had been teetering on the edge of orgasm since the first touch but had refused to give into it, and now she savored every stroke, relished the growing power of the feeling inside her pussy each time she pushed down until denial was no longer possible. Her muscles tightened and electric impulses raced from all parts of her body, all toward her very center where she tightened around J.T.'s cock.

It was happening, it was really happening! And as the electric impulses collided she cried out in wonder, thrusting her hips faster until seconds later she heard a matching cry from J.T. and his liquid warmth filled her pussy.

In the calm after the storm, Angelica slid down until she was lying full length on top of J.T., every inch of their bodies connected. Without willing it or even thinking about it, she slipped to his side and into the protection of his arm as he cuddled her to him.

"You seem so much happier," Angelica murmured against his chest. "And I don't mean that in a 'Well sure, I just got laid' kind of way. It's more than that."

This time the silence wasn't awkward and Angelica waited patiently, knowing J.T. just needed some time to sort out what their lovemaking had meant and how to put it into words. Finally, he turned his face to her and saw the caring there, the willingness to understand.

"It's the first time I've felt connected in three years," J.T. said. "Loneliness is a horrible thing, but it's even more horrible when you feel like the alternatives are worse. I missed being with people but couldn't stand to be around them, y'know? Carl and Sandy, Neil and Gloria -- they've tried, I mean really tried, to make me feel better, to take care of me since Monica died. But I couldn't just think of them as people; they were reminders. And reminders made things worse. I think you may have taught me to start enjoying people again."

Angelica kissed both of his cheeks and the tip of his nose before easing off the desk. "C'mon, let's take you back inside and reintroduce you to the world."

As they stepped back into the reunion room, J.T. took Angelica's hand and smiled down at her. "Y'know I never did buy you that drink yet."

Angelica kissed his hand before withdrawing hers. "You go ahead. I think I need to clean up a little bit. I'll meet you back at the bar."

Twenty minutes later, J.T. was still waiting, his eyes scanning the same sea of middle-aged faces he had seen when he first arrived. Where could she be?

Angelica Morretti, the girl who had grown up on the Eastside and watched others with envy as her youth faded away behind the counter of her parents' deli, slid behind the wheel of her BMW Z4, the kind of car she had always wanted. She had gotten most of the things she wanted. But what she wanted most, the boy who unknowingly had been her lifeline in high school and who had grown into the kind and caring man that she knew he would, she would never get. And she couldn't even tell him why.

As the BMW slid out of the parking lot into the nighttime traffic, Angelica turned on the CD player.

Late at night, the big old house gets lonely
I guess every port of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is only
Given to a man with hands as cold as ice.

Angelica could only pray that the tears would stop before she got home.