The Meal, Some Food for Thought

Of course, this may not happen. You may leave with regret. You may put the number in your phone and give her a call. You may meet again next weekend, this time for a more quiet meal. Slowly you begin to get to know each other. Your feeling towards each other deepen with the weeks. Six months later you are planning to move in together. Your house is big enough for two and she has a friend who needs her flat to live in. Life becomes cosy. You still go out and meet up with the 'gang' but not as often. Dinner out is still a regular occurrence but now you talk about plans for the future instead of gazing lovingly into each other's eyes.

Yes, there is a future. Until the moment when that future and the hopes it holds is shattered. You are safe and comfortable where you are. You have put time and effort, not to mention money, into your home. You have a good job. She comes home one day, her key oddly hesitant in the lock, and announces that she's been promoted. Of course, you are delighted for her but then she tells you the twist. The new job is at head office in Toronto. Another continent, an ocean away.

You pause on your way to the kitchen to fetch champagne and turn around to look at her. She has a decision to make and you know in your heart that it will not be the one you want. But it is her decision and you make great pretence at being delighted for her. You both cry and hold and hug each other. Make promises that you both know won't be kept. We'll phone and skype every night. I'll fly back every other week. You can come visit when you get a holiday. All that sort of thing.

There is one last weekend of passion despite knowing that her packed suitcase stands waiting in the hallway ready for her Monday morning flight. You do skype every night, but time zones make that difficult, so it becomes the weekend only. She is always too busy to fly back, and her apartment is little more than a room so until she can find somewhere bigger you stay at home.

Years later you still have the occasional phone call and you follow each other on Facebook and send Christmas and birthday cards. Now she is with someone new and so are you. You met her new girlfriend when she came for a quick visit a few months ago. You approve, she has made a good match, but you still feel slightly awkward and a little jealous, yet you're pleased to see them so happy. It is a very strange mix of emotions and you are almost happy when they leave.

But let us not end on a sad note. It may not end like that. The frivolities of the early years are consigned to winter evenings in front of the fire with a glass of wine when you snuggle back into the comfortable nostalgia of 'remember when...' moments. You have become and accepted familiarity in your neighbourhood. When you visit the pub, you are greeted with smiles. "Evening ladies, the usual?" asks the landlady already reaching for the wine bottle. You're both on first name terms with the local shop. You get invited to the neighbours. Barbecues in the summer and dinner parties in the winter and you return the favour, inviting them into your garden and house.

Slowly you are beginning to notice signs of age. Was it you or her who first noticed the grey hair on the other's head? You now take pleasure in the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles at something witty you said. Your love making is less frequent

although it hasn't gone completely, but you still crave the tender warmth of her arms around you. Sometimes you wonder what life will be like when she isn't there and you shed a silent tear, quickly mopped away. "don't be a fool" you tell yourself, you are both still young and both healthy.

The days of holidaying in the youthful hotspots of Mallorca or the Greek islands are long gone. Now you stride, tweedy and heavy-booted across moorland or wild cliff edges. You let the wind and rain wash back the years. You know that there will come a time when even this must go but you cling on. You watch as the local girls stagger home from the pub on a Saturday night, their carousing filling the surrounding streets. Let them enjoy themselves, we will not spoil their illusion.

4.The Dessert.

My dearest, darling Aggie,

By now you will obviously have found this letter. I can almost see the puzzled expression on your face as you come home from work and wander into the kitchen expecting to find me toiling over the stove only to find the crisp new envelope waiting for you, emblazoned with your name. I hope you noticed that it was in my neatest handwriting. I imagine your quirky smile, one that I have come to love so much, as you wonder which of my latest funny tricks this is.

By now you must be even more puzzled as there is no hint of a joke or game. This is not one of those japes that my overactive and febrile mind has thought up to amuse you. This letter is serious. It is also, I suspect, unnecessary. I really don't believe that you ever suspected, and I could have let it lie. But it has been plaguing me of late. So much so that the time has come to speak up. Here goes ...

I have cheated on you.

There, now I have said it. Not recently I hasten to add. It has taken a long time and a mountain of guilt to finally get this far and put pen to paper. And this is exactly what it is. In these days of word processors and printers it was some achievement to find the crisp white writing paper and envelope and my faithful old fountain pen. I felt you deserved the extra effort. I also felt it might lessen the pain which you must be feeling although what sort of spell it might cast, I wasn't sure.

You must have a myriad of questions flying around inside your head. Who was it? When and where? Do I know her? Did it happen more than once? Let me settle your whirling thoughts on many of those questions. You don't know her and as far as I'm aware you've never met. It happened once and once only. Her actual identity is best kept secret as nothing would be gained from knowing. When and where is not something to be talked about in a letter but you can ask me later, assuming that we are still talking. I may even write about it in one of my 'infernal stories' as you call them, and my shame can be shared with the wider world.

All I hope for now is that I can come home and be allowed in. Even knowing I don't deserve it, I long for a hug. I long for your warmth. I need to feel you close. I need your comforting words of forgiveness. I live in hope.

Sweetest thoughts and love, Christine.

***

A fragment of an, as yet unpublished, story.

I don't know who came up with the idea of team building exercises, but they should be taken to a very dark place and disposed of in an unpleasant manner. Short ones are bad enough but this three-day, two-night jaunt in a large country house was the worst. It must be costing the powers that be a fortune and, in my opinion, was a complete waste of time.

I knew some of them because we worked in the same office, but others had come from regional offices scattered across the land. I'm not the most sociable person in the world and when we were split into groups and separated from people we worked with my heart sank. The thought of three days with these people was too horrendous to contemplate. Somehow, I managed to get through the first day and was planning to get back to my room and hide away. Annoyingly they announced that we were all expected in an hour for dinner. I rushed to the lift and managed to get away.

In the peace and shelter of my room I threw myself on my bed and took several deep breaths and tried to calm myself. Eventually I forced myself into action and took a shower. Dressed in the fluffy white robe provided by the hotel I made a skype call to Aggie and told her my woes. She knew me so well and tried her best to cheer me up. It worked a little and I logged off and dressed before dragging my feet along the corridor to the lift.

The banqueting hall was large, and the tables laid out with name tags at each setting. Once again, we were to be mixed and matched. I was at a table of eight and as my dinner companions slowly joined me, I recognised one face from my home office. The others were all strangers. We were six women and two men which was about par for the company although their status within it was the other way round. Most of the women were employed in admin roles and I was the only one with a senior position other than the two men of course. I don't think either of them realised that I was senior to them and they immediately started to take charge of the table.

I smiled inwardly when the majority of the women chose to ignore them. As the meal progressed, I could see them getting more and more annoyed and I loved it. I also started to relax and enjoy the meal. It was helped by generous carafes of wine that kept appearing. One woman in particular caught my eye and as the meal went on, I found myself watching her closely. I tried to work out what job she did within the company but that remained a mystery. She was small and neat with fluffed out red hair and a fiery glint in her green eyes. I guessed she was mid to late twenties and she had a quick wit that kept the table amused throughout the meal.

I had planned to dash off as soon as I could respectably do so but instead found myself lingering long after the dessert had been cleared away. The two men had given up and wandered away leaving just us women happily chatting and finishing the last of the wine. Thoughts of the safety of my room were gone and when one of them suggested going to the bar I readily joined in. As we filed out, I took the opportunity to glance at her name card. Her first name was B-- and I vaguely recognised her surname as something important in one of the offices in the north.

Shots are really not my thing, so I let the younger ones get on with it while I sat and carried on sampling the hotel's white wine. It seems that B-- was much the same mind as me and we sat together at a table and chatted idly as we watched the youngsters living it up at the bar. When I eventually told her I was heading upstairs to my room, she stood up and said she felt that way too. We waved goodnight to the girls who looked set for a long night and headed for the lift. It turned out we were on the same floor and her room was two doors along from mine.

I pushed my key-card into its slot and opened the door. Suddenly she stepped close to me and kissed me on the cheek before walking swiftly away along the corridor. I stood in shock, still holding the handle of the half-open door. I glanced in the direction of her room in time to see her smile at me before she disappeared. I heard the door click shut and the sound broke the spell. I went inside and shut my door. What had happened? Did it mean anything? Maybe it was just a northern thing? I glanced at the clock and decided it was too late to give Aggie another call so, with mixed emotions, I went to bed. It took ages for my mind to quieten enough for sleep.

Breakfast the next morning was a strange affair. For once we were not told where to sit so, I found a quiet table in a corner. I was hoping for a quiet time but as the room filled up, I was joined by a man and a woman, obviously colleagues, who started talking about sales figures. Luckily, I had picked up a magazine on my way in and I could bury my head in that.

We were shepherded into the same groups as yesterday and given our tasks for the day. It was a lovely late summer day and we were sent outside to build a rope bridge across a small stream that ran through the grounds. We were still an eight-woman, two-man team although not the same as last night at dinner. I had looked around for B-- over breakfast but hadn't seen her. I spotted her distinctive red hair off in the distance with another group busy about the same task as us.

The two men became churlish when we failed to follow their lead and then annoyed when they failed to throw the rope across the stream to a waiting team member. They became almost angry when one of our younger team members simply kicked off her shoes, grabbed the rope and paddled across to the other side. In the end they were the only two who didn't enjoy themselves. The rest of us had an odd sort of fun doing something we would never normally do and vastly different from our normal jobs. I almost saw the point of the whole thing. I ended up feeling quite bonded to my group.

We had a buffet lunch were then allowed the rest of the afternoon off to wander as we chose. The hotel was set in parkland with some formal gardens and an area of woodland, so I decided to explore. Many of the others chose to walk to the local village. In the end it was suddenly quiet and peaceful, and I could get away from the constant presence of other people. I wandered around the neatly tended gardens taking in all the wonderful aromas and then headed for the woods. I had just entered and was revelling in the coolness of the trees when I came around a corner of the path and saw a figure standing in a clearing gazing upwards. Her head of red hair made her unmistakeable. It seemed such a private moment that I started to back away and leave her be, but I must have made some noise as she turned to find out who the intruder was. Her face split into a grin when she recognised me.

"Sorry," I said, "I didn't want to disturb you."

"Don't be daft, I'd love some company."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. I was just getting all spiritual with the trees." She laughed at her own words then went on, "I don't get out in the fresh air too much and trees and grass are a treat for me. Crazy isn't it?"

"City girl?"

"Deffo. All this countryside is a bit scary. And you?"

"Country girl born and bred. I still live there even though I work in the city."

"Do you know what all these are?" she said waving her arms to the trees.

By this time, I had wandered closer and was stood next to her in the middle of the clearing. I was feeling on stronger ground with that last question and I started to point out the different species of tree and how she could tell. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering at will through the wood. She was like a child eager for knowledge and I felt at home in an environment I knew well. Neither of us mentioned work or the current exercise at team building. Each time I started to reach the limit of my knowledge we would turn a corner and there was something unexpected and new to talk about.

We almost missed dinner as we lost track of time. Dinner had just been called when we got back to the hotel. No time even for a shower and a change. A huge sigh of relief when we were sat back at the same table as the night before. I found myself exchanging secret smiles across the table as the others filled us in on what they had been doing. Only the men were subdued. Mindful of their failure to impress last night they ate quietly and left as soon as they could. As before we all headed to the bar. I had to admire the capacity of the others for partying. Maybe I was getting old. B-- and I sat quietly together with wine and chatted about the day.

As with the previous night we left the bar early and went up to our rooms together. We hesitated outside my door.

"Nightcap?" she asked. She reached into her bag and, with a melodramatic glance up and down the corridor, she half revealed a bottle of wine obviously taken from the dinner table earlier.

"But I'm all sweaty from this afternoon and ..." I hesitated, "I haven't called my partner yet."

"Fine," she said, "half an hour then I come knocking on your door. I could do with a shower as well."

I know now that I should have said no or at least hesitated for far longer but instead I just nodded. With a grin she was gone. She called "thirty minutes" as she disappeared from view into her room and I was left wondering what I had done.

I hurriedly stripped off and dashed into the shower before emerging and wrapping myself again in the fluffy comfort of the hotel bathrobe. A thought flashed through my mind, this might find its way into my suitcase at the end of this. The skype call to Aggie was slightly awkward. I had one eye on her and one eye on the clock in the corner of the screen. I think I got away with it but only she will know that. It was only seconds after I had logged off that the knock came.

Any feelings of guilt vanished when I opened the door. After a brief pause, we both burst into a fit of laughter and giggling when we saw that we were both dressed identically. The hotel bathrobes were being put to good use. We became suddenly sensible as, in the distance, we heard the lift arriving and the warning ping of the doors opening. I stood aside and she rushed past me into my room and I quickly but quietly shut the door before we were discovered. It could all have been innocent, but I knew how tongues wagged in an office.

She had brought the bottle of wine liberated from the dinner table with her. She also had two glasses, although where they came from I have no idea. The crazy thing was that we could have put it on the room charge and I doubt that anyone would have queried it but that would have taken away the clandestine thrill of the moment. She put the glasses down and poured out two generous measures and passed one to me. We clinked glasses and both took large gulps that betrayed our nervousness. Then, as if from nowhere, we were kissing. I managed to put my glass down but a lot of hers went on the floor in the fever of the moment.

We finally broke in order to breathe and she put her glass down before we locked again. We staggered sideways and fell onto the bed, arms and legs tangled together. It would be nice to describe a blow by blow account of what happened next but, in all honesty, it's a bit of a blur and isn't really necessary. Our robes soon went on the floor and we explored each other's bodies with a hunger that surprised me. I remember seeing her pussy for the first time with its neat triangle of red pubes beautifully guiding me to a set of deliciously wet labia. There seemed no need to ask permission, so I plunged straight in. She tasted as yummy as I had hoped, and I revelled in the way she dripped her juices over my tongue. I think she had been priming herself before her visit as she came almost at once. I wanted more of her, so I stayed where I was. She was sweet and smooth and slightly salty like a fine dessert. I made her cum twice more before I let her have her turn with me.

Despite her relative youth she did not lack experience. She knew what she was doing. I was in heaven as she tongued and fingered me. My first orgasm when it came was like a volcano erupting. The second even more so. I needed a rest after that, so I pulled her up and we tasted each other in our kisses. Some may call it soul or spirit but whatever name it is given its what is exchanged in a kiss. An ethereal vacuum filled with emotion. Did I feel it at that moment? Did our kisses have true meaning? Looking back, I think not. But the heat and passion of the moment was no time for thinking.

I remember a moment later in the night. I was sitting over her as her tongue played with my pussy. Despite or perhaps because of, the waves of pleasure I looked down at the body spread out before me like a picnic of delicacies. Young, trim, and well looked after I felt a twinge of jealousy. I cried internally for my youth slowly slipping away. I mourned the passing of the years.

I am sure we've all experienced the awkwardness of the next morning, but I was spared that. We eventually exhausted ourselves to sleep but I was woken early by foreign sounds in the room. I opened one eye in time to find the other half of the bed empty and the fleeting glimpse of her creeping as silently as she could manage, out of the door. When I heard the gentle click of the latch I rolled onto my back and stared at the dim ceiling.