Right There the Whole Time

And we fucked. Lordy mama, did we fuck.

It was like we were racing the clock, trying to store up sensual memories before I left. Oh, we spent some hours with our clothes on, just enjoying each other's company. On those last two weekends we actually went on dates, enjoying good dinners and walking hand in hand on the beach, followed by steamy makeout sessions at popular parking spots.

Our parents were quite pleased at the idea of us dating. They knew us and each other quite well and knew that we and our families were good people. My father had even asked me a during my senior year why we weren't dating.

But basically, we fucked. Good god, she was hot. I knew my feelings for her were growing and sensed the same in return, but as if by some unspoken understanding we never acknowledged them out loud.

Then the day arrived. I was reporting to the induction center at 6 a.m. the next day, so after a joint dinner with both sets of parents the evening before, we sat together on her patio while our folks discreetly gave us space. We just sat together, wrapped in each other's arms, occasionally talking but mostly just being together. We parted around midnight after a long, long kiss and more than a few tears.

Fuck.

***********

Doreen's Epilogue

I barely made it through that night.

We had come so far, so fast. I knew I had fallen hard for this wonderful man, this thoughtful and caring person. Unlike my previous boyfriend, Tom always put me first, caring about how I felt and doing things that he knew pleased me. Sex was new for both of us, but he somehow just knew what to do to give me the greatest enjoyment.

I was so glad that he had been my first real lover. The only guy before him had been Darryl, but I had realized that we didn't have the kind of connection I wanted in that one special person. When I learned he was fucking Hillary it solved that whole situation.

Tom couldn't get enough of me, which made me want him even more. He adored my bod and made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Even that first time, when I stripped in front of him, it seemed just the right thing to do. It hadn't been my plan when I saw him walking by, but as the day progressed I knew what I wanted to happen.

But back to that night. I knew we were falling in love, and I knew that I had to say goodbye to him.

I also knew that him joining the Army was the best thing for him. I knew where I was going in life, but he was at loose ends. Being a soldier would help him get his head straight. But I hated the idea of him being away from me and I cried all night after he left.

That first year or so scared the shit out of me. His first letter arrived a couple of weeks after he left, and after that we both wrote a lot. They made him a medic, so after boot camp he spent a few months in Texas for training. The first time he came home on leave and showed up at my door in uniform I thought I was going to faint because he looked so damn handsome. His shoulders were broader, his chin stronger, his whole bearing so confident and, well, manly.

And he was mine.

I was falling for him even harder. He was only home for a long weekend, and let's just say we made the most of it. I adored his body as much as he adored mine. I was not in the least interested in the occasional male at school who would flirt with me or even ask me out. I just wasn't.

Putting my words on paper had given me a different kind of freedom and I told him every day that I loved him. He told me he felt the same way. Our relationship was where it belonged.

They sent him to Vietnam for a year and I worried the whole time. So many people were dying over there, and he was right there in the midst of it. It actually distracted me from my nursing studies, but as long as I got regular letters from him I could stay sane. I wrote to him every day and got almost that many back from him.

When he returned to the States, my mind was made up. So was his.

Him: "So, I think we should..."

Me: "...get married? Yes."

We set off fireworks that night, and they had nothing to do with setting anything on fire except ourselves. We even found new and different ways to please each other and to this day he loves it when I sit on his face. And ladies, deep throating isn't as hard as you would think.

I'll summarize the rest.

We got married while he was still in the Army. He had managed to get himself assigned to Fort MacArthur in Los Angeles for the rest of his hitch, and since I was getting my nursing degree from UCLA we decided there was no point in waiting. Our parents were beaming as we tied the knot in the church both of our families attended, with him looking so handsome in his dress uniform that I was wet the whole time, my body burning with anticipation of our first night as husband and wife. It was like the union of two royal families.

I finished my nursing degree and was immediately hired by a major hospital, while Tom enrolled at Cal State Los Angeles after his discharge and entered their teaching program. I made good money, and with his VA educational benefits and him working a part time job we did pretty well for a pair of twenty somethings. He took summer sessions to shorten the process and got his teaching credential in three years.

He was certainly a different person than the immature teenager from 1968. He carried himself differently and exuded a confidence few men possess. He had seen and experienced things no one should ever be subjected to and he had lost good friends. He had seen violent death and unimaginable destruction.

If it haunted him he dealt with it well, though on more than one occasion I found him sitting on the deck just staring at the stars in the middle of the night. He recognized what his combat experience had done to him and over the years attended support groups and received counseling.

We both had great careers and loved what we did, so life was incredibly good. We both earned master's degrees, and he eventually became a school principal. I learned additional specialties and became a nurse practitioner. We became the proud parents of the two prettiest little girls you have ever seen, both of them with the dark coloring of both my Mexican blood and his Italian heritage.

I never wondered what life might have been like with someone else. My man is as close to perfect as I could ever imagine, a kind, generous, loving husband and father, devoted to the girls and me, and a dedicated educator loved by his staff and students. I had hit the jackpot with him, and all I had to do was open my eyes.

As I write this we are approaching 60 years old, both of us retired and loving life. We travel, we hike, we bike, we entertain friends. We pour love on our four grandchildren, two boys and two girls ranging in age from four to nine. He is still handsome beyond belief, more so with silver tingeing his hair and his elegantly aged face. Our feelings have not faded and I still love to fuck him silly every chance I get. He still can't get enough of me and gives me orgasms that shake the earth.

I still love him to the core of my being.

And he was right there the whole the time.

***********

Tom's Epilogue

Walking away from her that night was the most painful thing I have ever done. I knew I had to go, but I also knew how I felt about her. I was hating the world for a while.

My three years in the Army had the desired effect; I grew up. I realized what I had to do to have a good life, and during one of those long, terrifying nights in the jungle I had an epiphany: The universe told me that being a teacher was how I could best use my potential. The realization actually calmed me in the midst of all that horror.

That horror never really left me, but it didn't consume me, either. I protected Doreen from the worst memories and visited the VA when I needed help. My brothers in arms were a second family.

We wrote to each other constantly and had finally expressed our love to each other. Every chance I got I took leave to go home to her, visits that cemented our relationship and deepened our love. When I came home from that fucking war I finagled an assignment to a base in Los Angeles and we got married, with her looking like an ethereal vision and our families smiling approvingly. I was hard all day, my heart threatening to burst from my chest, as this treasure of a woman became my wife. We were finally where we were supposed to be and our first night as husband and wife was indescribable.

She got her nursing degree, and I followed the universe's guidance and became a teacher after my discharge. In the midst of our chosen careers, we welcomed two gorgeous daughters who looked just like their beautiful mother. Grad school, promotions, and new opportunities to live the good life followed.

Our parents even became closer as holidays and celebrations drew us all together and they shared our beautiful daughters and eventually the great grandchildren they brought into the family.

I often think about the circumstances that brought us to this, all the little pieces that had to fit into place in exactly the right way at exactly the right moment. What would have happened if it hadn't been so hot and I hadn't had a hankering for an Orange Julius on that day at that time? What if she hadn't stepped out of her door at the exact moment I was passing her house? What if she hadn't dumped the VW Guy? What if her family hadn't been our neighbors? What if they hadn't bought a house with a pool? What if what if what if?

I didn't just hit the jackpot with Doreen; I won the entire fucking lottery. She remains to this day a model of a perfect woman and mate, the yin to my yang, my queen, my goddess, and my love for her continues to grow even after all this time. Forty years have elapsed since that fateful day and she is still the center of my universe, still beautiful with silver streaks in her dark hair, still kind and giving, still hotter that the surface of the sun. I still can't get enough of her and worship daily at her altar.

And holy shit, the sex is still out-of-this-world fabulous. We haven't let up a bit. I love it when she sits on my face and the way she screams when she cums. She can still swallow every inch of me.

I can't believe she's mine.

And she was right there the whole time.