Starting Over

"Maybe I'd better have my panties back," she said.

"Not a chance," said Jack, "I distinctly remember you saying they were a gift. Besides, I kinda like the idea that the woman on my arm is not wearing underwear. It's kinky but nice, particularly since I have just booked us into that little bistro for dinner."

"But Jack, suppose someone sees? I'd never live it down. I'd never be able to show my face in there again!"

"Well you'll just have to be careful then, wont you,"

Jack's voice seemed to carry a challenge. She realised that in her reply she was going to play straight into his trap, but thought 'what the fuck I'll play along.'

"Okay, then Jack, but understand this, I will get my own back, one way or another I will get you back," she laughingly replied.

"Right, we had better get going then, did you want to walk or drive around there," he asked.

"Lets walk," she said, "but I will need to get my sandals, they are still in the car."

The walk to the car took only a couple of minutes and they were welcomed at the door by the maitre d' who showed them to their table. Jack noticed that Sophie didn't take any alcohol during the meal sticking to Iced water.

"Face it Jack," she said, "if we were stopped they'd have me for driving whilst intoxicated and indecent exposure!"

They took their time over the meal and just chilled out, swapping more details of their past lives. Sophie listened quietly as Jack related the circumstances of his wife's death. Jenny was asthmatic and had woken late one night with an attack that her inhalers failed to counteract. Jack had called emergency and an ambulance had came racing out to their home in Amhurst, but the damage done to her system by her inability to breath was irreparable and despite the desperate efforts of the paramedics, she had died on her way to the hospital, This had only happened a year ago and Sophie could tell that the wounds went very deep. She vowed silently to try to heal those wounds as she remembered the hurt of her parents' deaths. Her Mother had died of a massive stroke whilst she was trying some new routines in their studio at home when Sophie was fourteen and her father had died in an air crash in England twelve years later.

Sophie and Jack finished their meal in silence each thinking of their own and each other's loss. Jack paid the bill and they left and went back to the car. Sophie drove carefully home to her house in the hills, Jacks hand on her knee, and occasionally reaching out to take her hand and kiss it.

When they got home they had a drink and switched on the TV for a while, before going to bed. They made love, gently and tenderly, not striving for orgasm, but as a means of being just as close as two people can be. They slept, still joined, through to the morning.

To be continued....