The Vacation

"If you need to ask, I'm not doing it right."

"Oh, John, you don't need to do that!"

"I want to!"

"Oh, John, don't lie to me. No man wants to do that!"

I stopped for just a moment. "I do. Relax." And with that I resumed.

Her moaning began as I reached her lips. She was instantly quivering as my lips passed over hers and my tongue stroked the folds of her labia. As I probed, she moaned and as she moaned, I probed more deeply. Her orgasm came rapidly and there was no mistaking the moment as her lips began to return my kisses and her hips rotated to push my mouth against her sex. As her orgasm passed and I slowed my kisses, she relaxed, and I felt her body go limp. She was spent.

Kissing my way back up her torso, she purred. As I reached her face, thinking that I would slide off to her side, she took my face in my hands and kissed me passionately.

"Jenn, I need to wash my face first."

"No you don't. If you could kiss me, I can kiss you."

I looked in her eyes and I saw the promise of all the love I could ever want. "You silly girl." She just smiled and kissed me again.

We lay together for a long time and then finally decided that a washcloth and a toothbrush were in order. Returning to bed and snuggling, she asked, "Did you mean it?"

"Of course. I don't say things I don't mean."

"Then I think we should keep both places for a time. We can move back and forth until it gets inconvenient and then we can figure out where we want to live."

"That works!"

"Besides, maybe we should take our time."

Now this was new!

I looked at her and asked, "Are you having second thoughts?"

She smiled. "No. I just want to build a firm foundation without any pressure."

I looked at her for a time. After the way my marriage turned out, I suppose I was looking for lies.

"I mean it. Wherever you sleep, I want to be there next to you."

It looks like I have a bad habit I need to unlearn. My guess is I probably have others, too. Living with a depressive can do that to you. Against your will, you learn techniques of self-preservation that don't enhance a relationship. I kissed her. "Works for me."

I laid back, held my lover close, and I pondered the life ahead of me.

"John?"

"Yes?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"What question?"

"When do we go up and get my car?"

I laughed partly from the humor of it and partly from the frustration. "I don't care. Tomorrow or the day after. We can decide in the morning. Maybe it will rain."

"That's fine."

And on that note, we drifted off to sleep.

It did rain the next morning, so we took the opportunity to get breakfast on the road. There was a diner back in Trenton, on the way to Ellsworth. Like so many small Maine restaurants, the food was simple and good. We fueled ourselves there and bought gas on the road. We had lunch at the same seafood restaurant where we first danced. The car was ready, Jenn paid the bill, and we took our time to do a little sightseeing on the way back to our motel.

The end of our vacation came far too soon. We were packing for our leisurely five-hour drive to the Boston suburbs when we decided to err on the side of safety and reserved a room at a harbor-side hotel in Portland. I feel a person can't be too careful on the roads today. That's a lie. We wanted one more night for our own secret getaway before our new lives together became a source of public discussion at work. We knew that if we started commuting together, as we were destined to do, it wouldn't be long before tongues would be wagging, and questions would be asked. It took a week. We worked with good people, and they were genuinely happy for us.

With our new relationship out of the closet, I soon introduced Jennifer to my kids. They embraced Jennifer with open hearts and soon adopted her as a member of the family. I don't think she was ever quite the same after that. The woman who for so many years was never quite sure of herself in relationships melted away and became an open, loving grandmother who was never more than a phone call away. She lived for her new family, and she adored her newfound grandchildren. For their part, they soon became in awe of the fact that their grandmother could build a computer from scratch, program it, and invent games to run on it. When they were older and they learned what she could really do, their relationship with electronics was forever changed. They no longer viewed technology as a mystery, and they didn't take it for granted. They knew that they could learn to do whatever they set their minds to, and I give her credit for the courageous people they became.

Epilogue:

There is one matter I felt I needed to take care of. I met her sister and her brother-in-law. They're nice people. Tom gave me the opportunity I was looking for when he took me aside and explained in very polite language that they were protective of Jenn and would not be happy if I hurt her. I explained in equally polite language that if she ever saw his penis again, he would lose the use of it for the remainder of his life. Now that we understand each other, we get along wonderfully.