Summer Love in the Moss

I stayed with Kris until her folks showed up. "This is my friend Brad," she told them after they exchanged hugs and kisses. I shook hands with them and we chatted a while. Finally, it was time. Kris gave me a brief hug and a long look before getting in the car, and they drove away.

Kris and I had exchanged phone numbers and addresses, and we kept in touch for a while as our lives diverged through time and space. In one letter, she thanked me for advising her to fuck her boyfriend, which I suppose I had as part of the logic for getting her to fuck me. I inquired if she would like some company over semester break, but she and her boyfriend already had plans for a Caribbean vacation. I did not inquire again. She broke off with the guy, according to one of her letters, and suggested we have a reunion, but by then I was heavily involved with someone else. She soon found another boyfriend. Gradually, our contact diminished.

Then, some 15 years after our summer romance, I received an envelope in the mail containing an issue of a popular magazine, noted for its candid articles on relationships and sex. The corner of a page was turned down, marking an article entitled, "A summer sexual encounter that shaped a life." The author's credentials included a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality. She told about rejecting chaste admonitions from family and a would-be friend and being open to overtures from another young adult. The result was a pleasurable affair and new knowledge about the joy of sex, which helped forge an open mind that led to several other worthwhile encounters over the years.

Attached by paper clip to the page was a personal note that expressed her gratitude "to the guy responsible for improving my life and helping inspire these words of wisdom."

Having once again become free of relationships, I wrote back, praising her work and suggesting a reunion, to which she was agreeable. We made the necessary arrangements and spent a delightful week at a resort in the mountains, where we caught up on our separate journeys through life and even revisited a mossy bed in the forest.