The Pilots

By Robert Wolf

©Copyright 2025 by Robert Wolf

Preface

This story, like my others, is based on real events in my life with a significant degree of fictional license applied. I’ve intertwined reality and fiction often even within the same sentence or paragraph. As in my other stories there is a dose of philosophy as well as more closure for the characters than you’ll find in many other stories. Perhaps I’ve written too long an introduction before a juicy sex scene, but I find my life is like this - lots of lead-in before the ‘good stuff’.

Chapter 1 - Foggy Conditions

“Eight-Two-Four-Eight-Golf, radar contact. Cleared for the GPS Runway 36-Left approach, report AMEBE inbound. Altimeter two-niner-niner-seven.” AMEBE was a point in space that was easy to navigate to with the Global Positioning System.

I responded, “Cleared GPS 36-Left, report AMEBE inbound, 29.97. 48G.” The radio went silent for a few minutes as my Cessna Cardinal came around from what had been my southbound heading to intercept the approach path for one of Orlando’s longest runways. I was sailing along quite rapidly at 140-knots just above a fog layer that covered the ground.

I lined up at the EXBAN intersection, adjusted my heading and altitude, and upon passing AMEBE, I contacted approach. “Approach, 48G inbound at AMEBE.”

“Roger, 48G. Contact tower on 124.3. Good day.” The 124.3 was the frequency of the Orlando tower.

I clicked the mic, and rapidly switched the navcom over to tower. I already had the frequency dialed in so the switchover only took the touch of a button on the radio. “Orlando tower, 8248G with you GPS 36-Left, passing AMEBE inbound.”

“Roger, 48G. Cleared to land, 36L. RVR less than 2000 feet. Altimeter 29.97.” That interchange told me it was foggy as fuck maybe all the way to the ground. I replied, “48G, cleared to land 36-Left.”

I slowed and adjusted my flaps, verified the landing gear was down, and ran through my landing checklist for a third time. I had entered ‘the soup’; looking outside the plane in any direction showed only gray cloud. I was on the descent path right on the money. A quick glance out the side window even looking straight down and I could see nothing. I started to think whether I wanted to go my alternate or circle in a holding pattern and see if the fog lifted enough for another approach.

I broke out of the fog layer just as the altimeter touched my decision height. I had my hand on the throttle ready to abort my landing and start the missed approach procedure for the runway - climbing left turn to DNMOR.

I’d already been cleared to land by the tower after I switched over to them from Approach Control, but that was based on the assumption that I would see the approach lights before descending below the DH for the instrument approach that I’d been on for runway 36L. I lucked out again.

As I’d hit that critical point, I gave a quick glance out the cockpit window and there were the approach and runway lights blaringly visible through the fog and haze guiding me - rippling at me and leading me to the threshold the rest of the way into MCO. Orlando International was often foggy on days like this. The air was CAVU a thousand feet up - just what I liked: calm air, visibility unlimited. I’d been flying over the puffy fog below me for the last fifteen minutes as I neared Orlando from the north, with only occasional sightings of the ground. Most of middle-Florida was covered in the stuff from what I could see. I’d filed with Sarasota or SRQ as my alternate airport. They were reporting ten-miles visibility with no ceiling.

My wheels touched down with a slight bounce right on the runway centerline and just up runway from the numbers. The concrete runway was immense relative to my light, single-engine aircraft. I had the feeling that I could have landed sideways across the runway and still had room too spare.. My radio came alive. “Cessna four-eight-golf, Ground Control on one-two-one-point-eight, good day,” the tower controller informed. I guess he could see that I was down. I had my landing lights on.

I pushed the PTT switch on my yoke and spoke. “One-point-eight for four-eight-golf, good day.” I switched to the ground frequency that I already had dialed in on the top navcom unit, “Ground, 48G with you on 36L going to Air Services.”

My rollout on the immense 12,000-foot runway had slowed to near a walk. “48G is cleared to Air Services; no traffic,” they replied; my headphones went silent again. I acknowledged the permission to taxi as I came off the active runway onto taxiway Echo. I used my second com to call the FBO and announce my arrival and need to refuel and park for a few days. I’d already booked a parking slot with them by phone. After their brief reply, I started to shut down some of the panel equipment that I didn’t need now that I was on the ground as I taxied. The airport was quiet except for activity over in the main passenger terminal that I could just about see through the ground fog.

A lineman wearing shorts and a safety vest came out of the Air Services hangar and through arm motions with red batons showed me where he wanted me to park. After I was in position, I shut off the rest of the plane’s electronic gear and then pulled the mixture out; starved for fuel the large engine came to an abrupt stop about ten seconds later. I went through my shut down checklist, popped the door and got out. The lineman had already tied the plane down. “Thanks,” I said, “I’ll be here for until Thursday afternoon at a conference in town. I do need a load of fuel - 87 octane” He shot me thumbs up.

I pulled my briefcase, some flight gear, and overnight bag from the backseat and walked into the FBO’s office. A few minutes later I’d checked the plane in, left my contact information and gotten the keys to my rental car, which, I was told, was right outside the landside door.

As I started to leave the building, there was an attractive young woman pacing by the exit door looking into the parking lot area every few seconds. She also had two pieces of luggage sitting on the floor near the door.

I was feeling charitable, so I spoke. “Can I give you a life someplace?” I questioned, “I’m headed towards downtown and you look like you’re waiting for a cab.”

“Well, I’m trying to get to the Intercontinental Hotel,” she said. “I’ve been waiting an hour and I’ve called the taxi company twice. They keep saying ‘any minute’. I should have gotten a rental.” She shrugged.

“The Intercontinental is exactly where I’m headed. Are you going to the Energy Futures Conference? That’s was I’m planning to attend this week.”

She gave me a big smile, “Why, yes, I am. I’m tomorrow’s keynote speaker at the luncheon.” She paused then extended a hand, “I’m Kim Winslow. And, yes, I’d love a ride if it doesn’t inconvenience you.”

I shook her hand, “Ron Hume. Come on then and nice to meet you. How’d you end up at the general aviation terminal? Did you fly in?”

“Yes I did, from North Carolina” she offered as she collected her luggage and we exited the building into the gray, damp air. “My plane is the red and white Mooney next to your Cessna. I watched you come in. Low ceiling out there! I had four-hundred feet when I landed, but things seemed to lower since then.”

I felt good for offering the ride and having her accept. Kim was a looker, and I tried to avoid staring at her in a lecherous manner, although that was what my reptilian brain wanted to do.

Further, I gave her a perfect score for not only being attractive, but also for having an instrument rating that let her fly a relatively high-performance plane into a socked in airport.

Kim was a pretty brunette with sparkling blue-green eyes that just drew you into her soul with your own. She was in a ponytail, and her tresses were down to the middle of her back. She had a beauty mole up by her right cheekbone as she turned to talk to me that added to her sex appeal. Her youthful face had lovely angular features. I’d read somewhere about a study of beauty; people perceive beauty based on placement of facial features, distance between the eyes, eye shape, mouth and lip shape, and hair, profile, on and on.

This young woman was exceptionally beautiful, no doubt about it. Even though she’d been sitting and wearing slacks I noted her trim figure. She had a healthy glow and a suntan so I speculated that she had some athletic ability that put her outside some of the time.

We did pilot talk as we packed our stuff into the Camaro that I’d rented and drove towards downtown using the GPS on my cellphone with Kim giving me crisp directions as she watched the display. We headed right to the hotel. Meanwhile I was assessing my passenger: very pretty, very professional, very smart it appeared, no nonsense, and, as I discovered a commercial-instrument-rated pilot. I asked, “What do you do when you’re not flying or giving keynote talks to a bunch of energy geeks?”

“Well,” she said watching me, “I hang out near Chapel Hill. I run a business there that mainly builds specialized and custom solar panels and related equipment. I have an electronics background from my undergrad. I got started about five years ago while in grad school at UNC when I was working on my MBA. In one course, I had to conjure up an idea and do a business plan for it. I already had some thoughts about my company back then, and after I did that plan, I thought I could make some money if I really implemented it. Turned out I was right. So far, I’ve paid off my student loans, my company’s angels and backers, bought a house and decorated it, and most recently bought the airplane but I’ve been flying since I was eighteen. I started flying lessons when I was sixteen. Tell me about you, where do you hang out?”

“I have three hangouts,” I responded somewhat humbly. “I have a year-around camp near Saddleback Mountain in Maine, a condo at the Watergate in DC, and my main residence, which I don’t see as much as I like, is on Amelia Island, outside of Jacksonville. My flight here today was from DC, with a refueling stop in South Carolina.

“I’ve had my own management consulting company for the past fifteen years; before that I worked for a couple of other consulting firms doing the similar work - taking a client’s watch, telling them the time, and keeping the watch.”

She gave a delightful laugh at my very old joke. “You must have a lot of watches,” she said. Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

“If that means you think I’ve been in this business too long, you’re probably right,” I said to her comment. “I’m long of tooth and experience. I do have a lot of wisdom from all my mistakes, however.” I chuckled and gave her a big grin.

“Oh, dear,” she said, putting her hand on my right arm, “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re old or anything like that. I wasn’t thinking. Your comment about watches and you look like you’re good at your job and …” she stuttered.

I stepped in and rescued her, “Oh, hey, I know I’ve got a few years on you. And, yes, I think I’m good at my job; at least I fool my clients into thinking so. These graying temples are worth an additional $200 an hour on my billing rate,” I gestured to my temples. “It’s even gotten easier finding people to pay twice that to have me work with them on company change projects. I seem to specialize in the energy field; didn’t plan it, just happened that way. It’s taken me around the world several times, but not in the Cessna. As you’ve probably noticed, the field is a kind of close-knit society.”

We had a great banter all the way to the hotel. I parked and we strolled into the lobby carrying our luggage. I gestured for her to go to checkout first, but I was standing close by. At the desk she said, “Reservation for Kim Winslow.”

The clerk glanced at the two of us and said, “Ah, yes, Mr. And Mrs. Kim Winslow.”

“Oh no,” she said. “That’s just ‘Miss’. This gentleman has his own reservation.”

“Be with you in a moment, sir,” the clerk said, ignoring his faux pas.

Kim finished registering and I went to the desk, nodding what I thought was goodbye to my pretty hitchhiker. I did my check-in and when I turned Kim was still standing there by our luggage.

“Ron,” she said, “I don’t meet any pilots at these events, or anybody that’s as nice, congenial, and, well, would you be free for drinks and dinner?”

“I think that’s supposed to be my line, isn’t it?” I smiled with a big grin then added in a less teasing tone, “Yes, I can think of nothing that appeals to me more than being with you this evening. And, I mean nothing in the world.”

“Great,” Kim said. “Me, too. I’ll meet you over there,” she gestured toward the lounge area, “in about thirty minutes.? Her suggestion was really a question and I nodded my agreement.

We headed for the elevator. Both of us had rooms on the twenty-second floor as it turned out; she kept going past my door just as I found my room number. Her room was two doors down. I suggested, “When you’re ready to go, just bang on my door! I’ll only be a couple of minutes and then ready to go.”

“Okay,” she yelled over her shoulder as she disappeared into her room.

Twenty minutes later I heard a light rap-rap-rap at the door. I was ready. I came out to meet her pulling the door shut behind me. I gave a cheery greeting, bowed and offered my arm; Kim took it and moved in close to walk in-step down the hall with me towards the elevator. My heart skipped a beat. We were happy together.

We each nursed two glasses of wine in the lounge as we explored each other’s lives for over an hour. I’m pretty good at interviewing since it is an integral part of my job. I interviewed Kim; she was very open, level headed, yet had a sense of innocence and an invincible air about her.

In a very short time, I felt I’d known her for years and I’d learned a lot about her life. I marveled at the maturity and business savvy of this thirty-year-old. She had a company with over a two-hundred people working in it that was growing in a tough and highly competitive market; further she had more ideas about what she wanted to do with the company and her product line than there was time and probably money to pursue them all.

I finally suggested dinner and we walked across the hotel lobby to the upscale restaurant. We were offered a choice of tables and picked a booth that the two of us slid into. I felt privileged to sit next to this young go-getter. She scooted over to be closer to me than I expected; my heart skipped another beat.

With our conversation and close proximity, I at least had obtained the excuse to study every feature about her as we sat. I liked everything I saw and heard from her. She was a go-getter - a doer.

Kim then turned the tables on me; her interview skills were good, too. Her first question brought a smile to my lips. She was zeroing in on me. “You a family man?”

“Yes … and no,” I replied. “I’ve been a widow for four years; my late wife died of cancer. I have two grown and married daughters and three young grandchildren that I don’t see enough since they’re all living in Denver and I don’t get out there that much. We lived in Denver while I got my doctorate and we started our family, but later, we came east to the DC area for one of my jobs.”

“And you said you run your own business?” Kim asked.

“Yes. I’ve kept it small, yet it is a vibrant strategic consulting business that keeps ten ‘free lancers’ busy.” She learned that my business skills were more recently about changing things - big things in a big way, and we talked about areas of the energy industry that needed transformation. The dialogue was electric between the two of us.

I finally said to her, “Okay, it’s time for the nitty-gritty personal questions that reveal the real you … and me that we haven’t talked about. I’ll flip you for who goes first.”

“No, I’ll start,” she laughed and asked, “Do you have someone you’re close to? Someone in your life? A partner?”

“Score!” I said with a laugh and ticked off an imaginary box in mid-air. “No, right now I’m single. I’ve had lots of offers since Mindy passed, mostly from divorcés for some reason. They’re very nice but nothing has clicked with any of them. I haven’t been looking so really I don’t date much. If something were to arise, I’d like a comfortable relationship like I had with my wife; it was unconventional yet very supportive of our personal and spiritual growth and evolution. I just haven’t met anyone that turns my switch on yet.”

I paused, “Now it’s my turn. You don’t wear a wedding ring so I presume you’re single, yet you are one of the prettiest and most talented women I’ve ever met. Is there someone special out there in your life?”

“Score!” she said with a bigger smile and made a gesture to post the point on the imaginary score board in the air. “No, I’m also very single. Like you I’ve had offers but nothing that turned my head. I rarely date because I’m so wrapped up in my company. Thus, my social life is pretty limited. My sister June thinks I should use computer dating but I’m just not up for it yet.” After a pause, “Okay, my question. What do you mean by ‘unconventional marriage’ and growth and all?”

“Well,” I began, “after my wife and I’d been married a few years, we realized that we weren’t too happy with each other or our marriage. The discussion went something like ‘You’re not making me happy.’ A lot of our friends were in messy divorces, some were fighting over custody of kids, house, pets, music collections and so forth, and just about everyone else we knew was ‘just settling’ for a sad state of affairs in their marriage.” I looked at Kim to see if I was boring her; she nodded to encourage me to continue.

“Anyway, we said we both wanted more, a lot more from our relationship - any relationship, so we started listing the things that we felt would make an ideal marriage and tried to figure out what we’d have to do to change or make them happen. Cutting to the chase, we both finally affirmed that we were responsible for our own happiness; neither one of us could be the sole source or cause of the other’s joy. There are lots of implications when you say that. We had to really change our mindsets about how we were actually living and loving.”

“Next we talked about commitment because that was the big buzz phrase that everyone was talking about when it came to being married or building a relationship. We came to realize that ‘commitment’ as it is used around most relationships means you’ll adhere to a set of rules, some created in the relationship and many created by society. We made a list of a lot of the rules and didn’t like most of them; they were really restrictive and prevented our growth and development. For instance, as a ‘committed husband’ I could never have offered you a ride today; I could have if you were a guy, but not to a woman. I could have dinner with a guy, but not a woman I’d just met. When we started to throw out most of the rules we really had a lot of implications that we talked about.

“Further, we realized those rules and boundaries such as what I just mentioned defined a ‘conditional’ relationship. We’d both been living and implicitly saying, ‘I’ll love you so long as you obey these unspoken rules.’ What we really wanted was each other’s ‘unconditional’ love.”

I went on, “Thus, we embraced the concept of unselfish and unconditional love - a friend helped us with this part of things. We realized that many of the sources of our growth and development were outside of our marriage. We had to be willing to have each other go into the world and grow and develop without fear, jealousy or distrust, and while they were out there in the world to accept and love other people without conditions … or rules. This is where our spiritual side comes into play too; we weren’t too religious but we were spiritual. Loving someone you’ve just met is really a novel idea, but we’d realized that there wasn’t enough love in the world. To us it meant an unlimited way of being and of helping others in their being.”

“Wow,” Kim said. “That IS unconventional. I assume it worked?

I laughed and said, “Only for the next twenty-five years we were married. We loved each other dearly and I miss her. Her name was Mindy and I think of her all the time.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Kim offered as she put her hand on my arm again.

We continued to converse through dinner then coffee then found ourselves back in the lounge slowly nursing more wine. We talked and talked. Finally, the barman came to our table and told us that they normally closed at two o’clock in the morning. We’d lost complete track of time.

“Can I see you again tomorrow?” I asked hopefully. “Er ah, later today?” I added.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Kim said as we got in the elevator. We made arrangements to meet after her luncheon keynote. She held my arm again up to our floor in the hotel. With her low heels on, the top of her head was just below my eye level. I could smell her, a feminine aroma that I’d treasure for the night.

At the door to my room, she released my arm and took a step towards her door. She then retraced the step and kissed me, not on the cheek but on the lips. “Thank you,” she said looking into my eyes. “You taught me a lot about myself tonight. I want to continue our conversation tomorrow.”

Damn. My heart skipped two beats. I ruefully watched her walk down to her room and disappear inside.

Chapter 2 - Playing Hooky

In the morning I registered at the conference and attended a few conference sessions, did some networking with a few of the hundreds of people attending that I knew, and then went into the luncheon. About eighty round tables were spread out across a huge ballroom with eight to ten chairs per table. There was a dais with about ten seats. Lots of people were milling around. As I usually do, I took a table in the rear so I could sneak out if things were unbearable. Food arrived in waves. Eventually, the conference moderator stood and started the introductions.

Kim Winslow was introduced as the youngest, most influential person in the room, a person who was going to change the face of energy technology, etcetera, etcetera. She was the newest member of the Young President’s Organization, an honor she’d failed to mention to me. I felt privileged to have such a person as my friend even before the introduction started, now I was wowed by a few facts I learned about her that she hadn’t mentioned the day before, probably due to modesty.

Kim’s address to the 800 people in the room was visionary and controversial. She had an engaging and energetic speaking style and she painted a new picture of energy provision in the world that was dramatically different from the conventional and yet did it in a way so that every person in the room believed they could contribute to making it happen and more importantly they wanted to make it happen. The speech was later published in the conference proceedings and was well worth the read. As I looked back a few years later, much of what she said was coming to fruition just not as fast as she’d projected. Kim got a standing ovation.

I greeted a few of my friends and colleagues as I milled around the ballroom and then slowly wound my way up toward the dais to shake her hand as many others were doing. I hung back a little so she could collect her well-deserved accolades but she saw me and flashed me a huge smile.

“Ron,” she yelled out above the din. “Come here, join me.” I closed the gap to her as she continued in an animated discussion with a dozen people at once, some of who were the conference leaders. Much to my surprise she gave me a hug when I reached her; it was a polite, professional hug, the kind friends give to each other. She whispered in my ear, “If I’m not through here in ten minutes you throw me over your shoulder and carry me out of here.” She grinned as we parted. I stepped away slightly.

Kim gave me a stellar introduction to her nearby colleagues. Suddenly, I was in the inner circle of the futures conference, a nice place to be. Much to my surprise there were business cards exchanged and upon learning a few of my credentials an invitation by the moderator to speak at the conference the following year - as a keynote. I glanced at Kim and she gave me thumbs up.

At the ten-minute mark I made eye contact with Kim as she continued to be inundated by adoring colleagues. She nodded at me. I said in an audible voice so others in the circle could hear, “Excuse me, Kim, we have a conference call in a few minutes and we need to talk about our plans and things before then.” She acknowledged and said, “Oh, yes,” made polite goodbyes and thanks to several people, promised to see them later in the hallways, and we headed out of the ballroom at a rapid, business-like pace.

“Whew,” she said as we reached the hallway, “I’ve never spoken to a group this large. Could you hear my knees knocking?” She led me towards to the elevator and as the doors closed she latched onto my arm again and stood well inside my personal space. I was glad. “It took me five minutes to find you in that huge room; I was worried you’d skipped my talk. I really wanted you to hear what I had to say; I want your thoughts about it. I really just talked to you the whole time.”

“I’m honored,” I responded by extra hugging of her arm into my body in a polite way. I prattled on about how wonderful her talk was as we rode the elevator and then I asked, “What is your pleasure for the afternoon? I’m all yours. More conference? Play?”

She looked at me sideways and then in a slow childish voice said, “Play. I want you to take me to Disneyworld.” She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek after I’d said I would. She added, “I’ve never been to any of the Orlando parks.”

The afternoon got more romantic as it went on. We changed into really casual clothes and running shoes, and left the hotel and drove to the park. We were drawn to each other on so many levels. We walked through the amusement park and even went on a few of the rides - those without a waiting line.

We talked about everything - family, business, consulting, homes, hobbies, flying, and more. Neither one of us planned our hearts skipping around, it just happened. We touched each other - deeply and tenderly, but a little tentatively a first. Maybe it was because each of us was lonely, or alone, or away from home, or maybe there was a cupid flying over us frantically shooting arrows into our hearts. We held hands everywhere we went.

I was properly chivalrous to her when I had held the car door then offered my arm and she took it. A while later we held hands then she held my arm again. Then she wanted my arm around her shoulders and next she put her arm around me too. On the roller coaster she held on to me for dear life; I closed my eyes and figured I could live through anything for ninety seconds.

We shared some snacks and then on a park bench she just snuggled up against me and held my arm around her. We just sat in silence and watched the people go by. At about six o’clock, I asked, “Is it wine time yet?” She laughed and said, “Oh yes, but we can’t go back to the hotel just yet. I’ll be mobbed and we’ll never get to spend the evening together. Let’s go somewhere else. Someplace no one knows us.”

We ended up in the very dark and very empty cocktail lounge of a steak restaurant just off the Interstate. Kim cuddled up to me as we sat and pulled my arm around her again. We ordered our chardonnays and a couple of hors d’oeuvres. She kissed my cheek again.

“I am very grateful that you are so thankful or affectionate or both,” I said. “I had fun this afternoon. More fun than I’ve had in a long time, a very long time. Are you sure you don’t mind hanging out with guy old enough to be your father?”

“I had fun too,” Kim said. “And I don’t think you too old. We should do this more often. And it was a ‘both’ - I’m thankful and affectionate with you. I’m not normally openly affectionate but you’ve inspired me, and thank you for rescuing me from a potentially boring afternoon.

“So, it is ‘both,’ I said with a grin, “and I’m slightly better than being bored at a conference.”

Kim started, “Oh no, that’s not at all what I meant. You …”

I interrupted with a laugh, “I’ve had a wonderful afternoon, too, and you made it that way. Now you’re going to make it a wonderful evening - and already you’ve made this whole trip a peak experience for me.” She grinned at my tease and pecked my cheek again.

Our wine and appetizers arrived, so we diverted our attention from each other for a few minutes. Then Kim asked, “Ron, last night you talked about unselfish and unconditional love and I kept thinking about that term today, even this afternoon, but I’m not even sure what questions to ask.”

“Let me start by telling you that I love you,” I said with great sincerity in my voice. I pulled her to me and kissed her on the lips. She kissed back and then went “Wow! You do?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I am especially glad you are the person you are, and I would find a way to love you if you were some other way, too. You make it easy though; you return my affection with your own. What goes around comes around. That’s karma.”

“But I felt I initiated things,” she said. “Plus, you probably look at me like a kid based on your earlier comment. You are so much more experienced and ‘have arrived’ compared to little old me.”

I started, “Well, I don’t see you as a ‘kid.’ You are a talented woman in her prime, and you have a jumpstart on a fantastic career and company that’s poised to takeoff in the broader energy field than just solar panels. And to your question, you might have felt my love for you and then responded by returning that love in your own affectionate way. In a relationship unconditional love means I love you and I support your quest to develop and grow, even when that quest takes you to other places with other people. I sometimes use the term ‘unselfish love’; by that I mean I don’t withhold my love if you do something I don’t approve of or if you don’t follow ‘my’ rules, even if there are others involved.”

“Do you mean even if there is intimacy involved with someone else?” she asked in a timid tone.

“Yes,” I said, “but then I’d have unselfish and unconditional love for that someone else, too. I’d want to see them grow and develop. They’d become part of the relationship we share, and we’d welcome them into it.”

“That’s mind blowing,” Kim said. “So, if I was your wife I could sleep around?”

“I would hope that wouldn’t be the goal. I don’t see much love or growth from a move like that. But if you felt that was an important step for you, especially to enhance a connection with someone you liked, then so be it. You’re an adult and you know by now that you are responsible for your own life and your own happiness. I don’t think you see yourself as a ‘victim’ of life; you’re molding it to your own needs. Sleeping around usually seems to bring more regrets than happiness in the people I hear talk about it; it’s sort of a hollow way to build relationships and not my cup of tea, I might add.”

“But what if I fell in love with someone? Suppose I had an affair?” She posited.

“If you have to sneak around to have a relationship with another person, I would guess that it wouldn’t take too long before you wouldn’t respect yourself or even the relationship. You would label yourself a ‘cheater’ or worse. If you build a relationship in the daylight, so to speak, then you can feel proud to be supportive and loving to that someone, even sharing them with your spouse or vice versa as you all grow together. I know this sounds radical, but when you consider the alternatives and how much pain and sorrow most of them bring I wonder why so few other people think this way.”

Our conversation went on and on; eventually we went into the restaurant and had a regular dinner. Even though the restaurant was pretty upscale no one seemed to mind our casual clothes. We held hands between courses and while we were waiting. I don’t think either of us particularly cared what we ate; our focus was on the other person. We left the restaurant at eleven o’clock as they were closing, and snuck back into the hotel without anyone noticing our arrival. We rode up in the elevator alone holding hands and standing very close.

As we got to my door she wouldn’t release my hand. “Come with me,” Kim said quietly. We went to her room and she opened the door with her key card and pulled me inside. Kim’s arms went around my neck and she pulled me into a passionate kiss. “Oh, you’ve made me so happy today,” she said. “Now come and make love to me. I have fallen unselfishly and unconditionally in love with you.”

“Are you really sure you want an old guy like me in here with you?” I asked but still following her into the room, but for the first time since we met I was nervous about what was about to happen - if anything happened.

“Oh, more than you know,” Kim said with some eagerness. “Your age doesn’t matter to me but your philosophy does. I feel loved and cared for when I am with you; no one ever made me feel this way. I know you’ll still love me tomorrow, too - and I’ll love you even more. Now come.” She pulled me to the king-sized bed, and we both fell onto the huge mattress.

Chapter 3 - Romance

Kim fell into my arms and we really kissed passionately for the first time. We had kissed a few times before but this kiss stopped me in my tracks. In less than a minute, we were French kissing and loving it. I was as eager as she was apparently. We were each making little noises of approval.

I whispered to Kim that I loved her as our lips we touching; it was a sensuous uttering. She whispered back that she loved me, too. The next kisses were positively electric. I could feel them from my head to my toes, and especially in the middle.

I took my tongue and gently traced the outline of her lips over and over again. We were pliant to the other’s touch. She would occasionally bring her tongue out to greet mine. This wasn’t a French kiss; our contact was outside the mouth. I extended my focus to include her neck, ears and face, particularly using my tongue in her ear and blowing warm moist air as I whispered what a fabulously beautiful person she was in looks, in her inner being, and in how she came across to other people. She kept trying to get closer to me.

I shifted to a quiet loving of her mouth extending my tongue inside her as far as I could reach. We traded positions and in so doing really tasted each other over and over. I liked her taste; she told me she liked how I tasted and what I was doing. My heart skipped three beats. I knew we were getting turned on, but I pledged to myself to respect this lovely younger woman.

Kim reached over and started to unbutton my sport shirt. I took that as an invitation to simultaneously work on the buttons to her blouse. Together we shed our tops at the same time. She had a delicate bra on that she immediately shed by unhitching the catch in the back and shrugging the intimate garment off her chest. Her breasts were perfectly shaped handfuls of taut flesh with large areolas and significant nipples.

I put my mouth to first one and then the other breast, sucking on the nipples and feeling them extend in excitement at my attention. Kim moaned and put her head back to savor my attention to her chest. She stroked my head and hair as I attended to her. She also adopted a simple mantra that she kept repeating at intervals as I stoked her fires: “Yes … yes … yes.”

Then she surprised me and lowered her head to my chest, licking and sucking on my nipples. No one had ever done that before. I felt the electric charge from her foreplay reach my groin as she did this, and blood surged into my penis like never before.

I fussed with the belt and zipper to her Bermuda shorts. Kim became impatient and did it herself, raising her hips off the bed to lower her shorts and immediately also her bikini underwear. She kicked both off the bed. She lay next to me nude.

If I’d surreptitiously watched her before all this, I positively and openly gawked at her naked body stretched out net to me. I whispered, “I’ve gone to heaven, and you are the loveliest of all the angels come to welcome me. You are the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen.”

I made a motion to reach for her pubic area but she stopped me and said “No, you strip. too.” I stood and removed the rest of my clothes and tossed them aside. Our two bodies merged in a magnificent kiss of epic dimensions for now we were fully honoring each other through our nakedness, fully loving each other as never before.

We both reached for each other’s sex at the same time. She fondled my rising cock and started a slow up and down motion masturbating me; she apparently enjoyed the feeling of me in her hands. I got even harder than I already was.

I traced the outline of her entire pubic area with one finger, avoiding contact with her sex at first. My finger ran around the edge of her trimmed pubic hair and down the inside of the depression in her thighs; I jumped to the other leg and retraced a similar route along her thigh, around her hair and over her flat stomach. She writhed under my hand, not because she was ticklish but because she wanted me to touch her sex.

I gently stroked into her pubic hair from her stomach, occasionally using my entire palm to remove any hint of tickling. This was not playtime; this was time for love. Gradually my finger found her slit and only tentatively at first made short and shallow forays into the front and very wet areas of her sex, then deeper, and then deeper and more pronounced. She rose to meet my hand, forcing me to her. She whispered, “You tease,” in a tender voice and gently bit my lip.

I shifted myself down the bed, rolling between her legs and putting one over my shoulder onto my back. My tongue started behind her right knee and traced a gentle line from there almost to her sex. I repeated the process on the other leg. I then rose and used my tongue across her lower abdomen, just above her pubic area. She pushed my head down with her hands.

I lightly ran my tongue down her moist slit; she was generating wetness rapidly. Her aroma was like the finest perfume. I savored the taste of her. Her fluid was a musky aromatic juice that was erotic and sexy beyond description. If I could bottle it, I would have saved it forever to remind me of that first moment at her threshold. I used my tongue to explore further and deeper into her pussy. She was tenderly stroking my head and guiding me with gentle motions: up, down, slightly to this side, pushing me into her.

I found her clitoris as it came out of its little hiding place. I knew I’d located it because it was carefully cloaked in a small circle of skin and rose in her excitement to greet my assault; more obvious though was her twitching and jerking motions as I ran my tongue over that part of her love nest.

I basked in her aromas, her fluids, her passion when we kissed, and all the preamble we’d gone through before those moments.

I started to stoke her thighs with my hands as I focused on her pussy with my tongue. Gradually, I brought my hands up and started to involve them in loving Kim and in particularly loving her pussy. I started to finger and lick at the same time, using tongue and then fingers. I inserted a finger into her cunt and her lower body rose up to meet me. I searched for her G-spot, exploring the areas I knew where it was supposed to be. Then Kim’s body arched towards me as I ran two fingers over a patch of internal tissue that had a slightly different texture from adjacent walls; I’d found it.

I moved away and came back, over and over again. I combined my oral loving of her clit with my fingers on her G-spot. Kim started to moan. I increased my stroking and sucking. She whispered, “Oh dear God, I’m cumming. Oh, yes … yes … yes.” I then accelerated my sucking and thrusting of my fingers into her cunt.

Kim came. She was magnificent in her climax. Her back arched. She clutched my head to her nether region, squeezing my head with her legs that had been held back to afford me maximum availability. She wanted my tongue to continue and my face to be smashed against her sex at the same time. My fingers gently stroked and then slowed their assault on her body.

She squealed and moaned. Her entire body shook with several tremors than ran from head to toe. If there’d been an earthquake, it would have come in about Richter Ten. A small bit of womanly fluid appeared. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh, that was wonderful. Oh, dear God, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you. I love you.”

The peak of pleasure passed. She was still languishing in the afterglow of the moment I’d provided her. She reached down and pulled me up, “Come here. Kiss me.” I moved up and gently kissed her. She pulled me to her in a hard and passionate kiss. When we parted she said, “I’m tasting myself, aren’t I? I don’t mind that. I never tasted myself before.”

I chuckled and said, “I loved tasting you, so I’m not surprised that you don’t mind. I could bathe in your juices and drink them for the rest of time. You are truly a delicious treat in every way possible.”

She considered that and said, “I think I’m being kinky.” She licked around my mouth and chin that were still dripping her juices.

She changed focus, reached down, and took hold of my cock again and started to pump it. I had been so focused on her it had deflated slightly, however, she returned it to readiness in seconds. She then lowered her head and kissed the mushroomed top. I felt her mouth slide over the end and she started to slide up and down my cock taking me progressively deeper and deeper into her mouth with each down thrust. “Ummm,” she said, “I really like tasting myself this way.”

I lay back and basked in the enjoyment of the sensations she was giving me. I talked to her. Telling her what I liked: “This not that”; “Try that”; “Good”; “Deeper now”. She occasionally took me all the way to the back of her throat, and then I felt myself go even deeper as she brought her lips all the way to my body. Then I was released again. I moaned and twitched. She was bringing me to the edge.

I whispered to her, “May I be inside you, not in your mouth right now. Come over me.” Kim carefully moved to straddle my hips as she held my rod in her hand. When she was positioned well she touched the end of my penis to her moist lips and rubbed my spongy head around her sodden cunt.

She allowed me to ‘catch’ at the opening to her vagina, and she stopped moving me around her sex. She slowly lowered herself an inch and then rose again, then lowered herself a little move then pulled up again, then lower still and up again. I was being teased. My penetration was progressing very slowly and very sensuously in the hands of this vixen. She was intensely watching my face as she maneuvered. I was watching her to be sure she was happy. I penetrated her slightly deeper on each of her strokes, perhaps only a quarter-inch more on each maneuver.

Finally, Kim dropped her entire pussy onto my cock, allowing the last inch to dramatically penetrate her vagina. We both groaned. Our loins pressed together in our bliss. She fell forward onto me, her breasts smushing against my chest, and we kissed; I could feel her erect nipples dragging across my chest. I reached up and fondled her breasts, twisting and turning the erect ends; as I did this I could feel the muscles along her vaginal walls convulse.

We jointly started a slow thrusting, my ups meeting her downs. She was in control and would rise to a point where I was almost going to fall out of her warm sheath; then she would slowly reconnect us, sliding me past her labia and taking me deep inside her. We did this repeatedly. We kissed repeatedly. I moaned repeatedly. She kept gasping and mewling in pleasure. We both panted.

I soon got the signals from deep inside my body that said there’s no turning back, that my orgasm was imminent. I whispered to her, “I’m near, very near.”

“Me, too,” she panted back and me. We French kissed again, our tongues dancing in each other’s mouths.

A few seconds passed and I said “Now!” I made four or five extended thrusts up off the bed into her tightening pussy. She returned the gesture. I felt her vaginal walls squeezing my cock with a ripple of electric muscle movements. I exploded. I sent wash after wash of jism deep into her pussy. Kim rotated her hips into me in a move of maximum receptivity. I felt a flood of fluid at our joining. Our backs arched forcing my cock and her pussy together to the maximum extent possible.

“Oh, dear God,” Kim uttered. “I can’t believe that that one was better than the other one you gave me. I like having you inside me - a lot.”

“I agree. I can’t think of anywhere else in the Universe I would want to be than right here, right now, with you. I’ll even stay here forever if you want.” We remained coupled as we petted, smoothed and kissed some more. Kim finally cuddled into my chest and we just snuggled together with her smaller figure still atop my body.

When I deflated and fell out, I pulled Kim up next to me so I could kiss her again. She was still cuddly yet passionate. I administered to her breasts and nipples some more, and then I took my right hand and started to finger her moist pussy again. She responded well.

I lowered my head to her cunt and much to her surprise licked and sucked at the juices coming from her. “OH,” she exclaimed in a surprised tone, “I’ve NEVER thought of anyone doing that. Are you sure?”

I nodded, but took a large sample of our combined juices into my mouth and rose up to her, nodding for her to open her mouth. She caught on immediately. I gently kissed her, allowing a little of our joint fluids to flow into her mouth. I could feel her tasting the sample. I gave her a little more; then she pulled my head to her and opened her mouth wide. I shared all I had with her.

“We taste good,” she finally said after we’d finished our wet kiss and we’d both swallowed. “Can I have some more?” She looked slightly embarrassed to be asking for something so lewd.

I went back to her well as she described the taste. She said, “I can taste both of us on different areas of my tongue. I am sweeter and more pungent than you are right now. You have a musky and salty like flavor.” I gave her another deposit and savored some myself.

“You sound like you are grading a fine wine,” I said to her finally with a chuckle.

“Yes,” Kim agreed, “I think I am. We’ll make gallons of this stuff and bottle it up and sell it as a rare and exotic perfume or mouthwash. Haute women all over the world will dab our fluids behind their ears and over their breasts to have that just right odor and to attract just the right guy.”

“Pheromones,” I said. “My wife used to tell me I had a lot of pheromones. I know it’s something that moths have to attract other moths. People are supposed to have them in varying degrees. She always thought I had a lot of them. I always seemed to attract women. Maybe that’s why you’re here with me now. You succumbed to my pheromones.”

“Whatever it is, I’ve fallen in love with you,” Kim said, kissing me deeply and intentionally rubbing her nipples around my chest.

“I hate to bring up a sensitive subject,” I said suddenly, “but we didn’t use birth control. Was that alright?”

“Yes,” she said, “I’m on the pill. My instincts tell me you haven’t been sleeping around very much. When was the last time you did this, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

“Over four years ago with my wife, before she got really sick,” I responded quietly. “Just her for the decade before that. Sometime I’ll tell you about what our life was like the time before that, but not tonight.” Kim looked curious but let the comment pass; I reached over and turned off the bedside light, leaving the only light coming from the partially closed curtains.

I paused after I lay back next to her. I asked, “How about you? When was the last time you did something like this?”

Kim looked embarrassed and admitted, “About two years ago - maybe more I’ve been totally focused on my business just about 24/7. Besides, I wasn’t meeting people like you. You’ve broken the longest dry streak since I started to have sex.”

We both made bathroom trips. As I sat naked on the edge of the bed, I asked, “Do you want me here or should I go?” Kim took my hand and pulled me onto the bed, kissed me tenderly, cuddled into me and pulled the sheet up over our naked bodies. I was in heaven, an unbelievable heaven. Sleep overtook us quickly.

Chapter 4 - Love and Lust

I awoke but didn’t move; the room was lit by sunlight coming through the curtains that were only open about an inch or two. I opened my eyes and Kim’s sleeping form was next to me, sheet askew so that her beautiful naked breasts were exposed. I just starred at the beauty of her face and form. What a perfect individual, I thought. I sent love thoughts to her. After a few moments her eyes fluttered open and she smiled at me; be still my heart. “I love you,” she whispered.

“And I love you,” I said as I leaned in a kissed her several times. “Hate to be bore, but what’s your schedule for today?”

“I have appointments all morning and a lunch. I’m probably free after one or two o’clock,” she replied with a yawn and seductive stretch. “What time is it?”

“Seven thirty. I’m your devoted slave for the rest of my life,” I said and kissed her some more paying particular attention to her breasts. She kissed back and hugged me to her naked form. I hardened.

“I should start getting dressed now if I’m going to make my day on time. How about a rain check on what seems to be developing here?” She asked teasingly.

“Okay, but no reneging. I’ll make good use of the time.” I jotted my cell phone number on a slip of paper by her phone. “Call me when you’re done and I’ll come running. I need to work the crowd and attend one particular session.” I slipped my shorts and sport shirt on, stuffing my underwear and socks into my pockets, kissed her once more, and slipped down the hall to my own room to shave, shower and dress.

I had just finished dressing when I heard the rap-rap-rap on my door. I opened it to find Kim standing there in a business suit looking very professional and all business. “Wow!” I said, “I would do business with you in a moment.”

She slipped into my room and plastered her body against mine. “I just wanted to be sure you remembered me,” she teased. She kissed me several times, her face up-tilted to mine.

I said, “As you go through today remember that you are loved. Not in any conventional way, but in a very unconventional way. Feel that love with you all day long. Know that whatever you are doing that my love is with you. Know that whatever decisions you have to make, I’ll love you. And, know that I can’t wait to see you again so I can love you some more.”

She smiled and the two of us walked out in the hall after checking to be sure no one else was there. I did want to protect her professional reputation.

In the elevator we were at the back as it became a local and stopped at most of the floors on the way down to the mezzanine. Kim quietly pinched my bottom between the eighth and seventh floor. I never respond to casual sexual advances. We got off at the mezzanine so that we could get a continental breakfast. .

The conference breakfast was abuzz with activity. There were clusters of people everywhere, most carrying small plates and eating bagels, juice and coffee. I bid Kim au revoir and we headed into the maelstrom separately. I found an old client and soon we were chatting about the outcome of some planning work I’d done for them two years prior. I spotted Kim with several others having an animated discussion. I sighed silently and mentally blew her a kiss.

At 8:50 am a bellhop walked through the breakfast area ringing chimes to indicate that we had ten minutes until the conference breakout sessions started. I said goodbye to my friend and headed to a session on solar technology. I not only wanted to hear the session, I wanted to befriend the speaker to see what his consulting needs might be. The rest of the morning went about the same with multiple sessions, sliding in and out of the backs of rooms, sampling session after session, collecting reading material as well as business cards in this room and that.

I headed to the conference lunch with about 800 of my closest friends. Again, there was a keynote speaker, however, I didn’t think he was near as good a speaker or as inspirational as Kim had been the day before. Kim, I knew, was in the hotel restaurant doing a deal. I made some good contacts at lunch and gave away a lot of business cards. All in all, I was happy the way my networking was going.

I was standing in the hall talking to two geothermal experts when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I excused myself from the group and answered the phone. Kim’s cheery voice said, “Are you ready to play hooky?”

I said in my best professional tone, “Why, yes, what a pleasant surprise. How are you? Haven’t talked to you for ages.” I gestured to my friends that I was going to slip away and we nodded goodbye to each other. I strolled down the hall holding the phone to my ear. “Where are you and what do I have to do to find you?”

Kim said, “Well, if you’ll look a little further down the hall you’ll see a good-looking and very horny chick just waiting for someone to entertain her in lewd and lascivious ways the rest of the afternoon.” I spotted Kim down by the elevators. She moved to head upstairs. I took the next elevator.

I rapped on her door and she opened it and pulled me to her. “Oh, I’ve missed you all morning. I have had one of the most productive days of my life. I’ve sold more business than I think I’ll ever be able to deliver. Everything went my way. Everything is going my way. I think that I’ve even got another company to merge with.” She put her arms around me and kissed me with great passion. Our kiss morphed into some serious French kissing.

“Do you still have more business to conduct today?” I asked, “Or are you free to play and enjoy life.”

“No. No more meetings today,” Kim said, “but I do have one important thing I have to do. We have to do.” With that she started to undo my belt buckle and zipper, reaching into my pants and grabbing my cock almost before I could respond.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Oh yes,” she replied, “Never more sure of anything in my life.”

We undressed each other with a sense of urgency. Seeing her naked body in the daylight pouring in the windows was a marvel. Her nude body was spectacular, bumps and curves in all the right places. Once naked, I bent and sucked on her breasts bringing her nipples to erection; meantime she worked on my erection.

Kim then announced, “I started thinking about making love with you in the elevator this morning and I’ve been wet ever since. I don’t want foreplay; I want you deep inside my vagina right now. Fuck me!” She pulled me to her bed.

She pulled her legs back and spread them wide, giving me unfettered access to her vagina. I bent and kissed her clitoris; she jerked slightly and made a mewling sound. I then rose and inserted my hard penis through her wetness into her and started a slow, in and out, rhythmic pumping. Kim sighed and locked her legs behind me, pulling me to her for a kiss with lots of tongue action. She was right; she was sopping wet.

We made love, mad passionate love, tender gentle love, and all the shades and hues in between. I maneuvered Kim into that space where she was triggering off little climaxes every minute or so. Moves that I had used years before - decades before - came back to me. I used my mouth, my fingers, and my cock to excite her. Each time her body would shutter and I would feel her contractions around my prick.

Finally, I could hold off no longer. I let her know I was ‘inbound for a full-stop landing.’ Kim said, “Cleared for the approach and landing, Mister. Please stay on the runway when you come to a stop.” We both ratcheted up the pace of our thrusting and she started to roll her hips, pulling my cock into her in an unusual and very stimulating way. I was a goner almost instantly.

“Oh, Wow!” I panted as my orgasm started. There was a squeal and moan from Kim at the same instant. I thrust several more times, very deliberately, into her and then my ejaculate started to fill her vaginal chamber. She was cumming with me; our backs arched in unison again and she used her legs to pull me deep into her as our thrusting ceased. Our mouths locked together in a passionate kiss.

Eventually we rolled to our sides panting wildly; I was worried I was crushing her with my weight. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if you’re too heavy, I want you right where you are right now,” she said with a smile and kiss. I remained as deep in her as I could be for several minutes after our lovemaking ended. Then Kim started to flex her vaginal muscles and I could feel my flaccid dick slowly being expelled with each of her contractions. She had a mischievous look on her face as she watched my reaction to her antics. I flopped out along with a deposit of our combined juices that fell on the bed.

“If you work on those muscles you could propel rockets into space, you know,” I said as I kissed the end of her nose. “Plus, who’s going to sleep in that wet spot?”

We played with each other for a few minutes, enjoying our stickiness and nudity. I think she would have gone another round, but a man of my age is not as resilient as he used to be. I mentioned this fact to her. Kim said, “Ah, what we need then is some activity that qualifies as foreplay and recreation, while we give this a rest.” She stroked my limp appendage.

I held her at arm’s length. “So, what’s your pleasure? Might you be interested in going to the beach?”

She said, “You’re kidding, right? There’s no beach near here. We’re in the middle of the state.”

“No,” I said, “The beach is only a little over an hour or so east of here. If we leave now we can swim, walk, run or whatever over there and be back here for dinner or we could eat over there.”

“Let’s go. I haven’t been to the beach in years and I love it.” She hopped up and started rummaging in her suitcase. “I even have a swim suit in here somewhere. I think the last time I wore it was three years ago.” She held up several pieces of cloth that couldn’t possibly cover very much skin. “Here it is,” she announced.

“You’re dripping, dear,” I commented, nodding to her very damp pussy.

“Oops,” she said as she grasped her groin with a cupped hand and shuffled into the bathroom. “A girl has got to watch herself around you,” she yelled out.

I got up and joined her, taking the damp washcloth from her to clean myself. I also went and tried to clean the wet spot on the bed with a dry cloth. I told her, “I’ve got to change. I’ll go back to my room. Knock on my door when you’re ready. Bring a change of clothes - all casual, like yesterday.” I gave her peck on each nipple. She liked the action.

An hour and a half later we parked along the waterfront in Cocoa Beach. Condominiums ran along the oceanfront as far as the eye could see both to the north and south. Nonetheless, the beach was fairly deserted. We left most of our stuff in the car. We lathered up with sunscreen, grabbed a couple of towels I’d borrowed from the hotel, and started walking south away from the pier that appeared to be more honky-tonk than either of us wanted.

Kim was wearing the little brief bikini and I had on my manly swimsuit. She also wore a matching gossamer skirt that made her look sexier than if she’d had on only the bikini. And then there were her breasts, held only slightly by the two small triangles of designer cloth with strings behind her and around her neck. I kept leering at her even though I knew what delights there were beneath. She laughed at my arousal and she admitted she relished her ability to make heads turn, and turn they did as we walked along.

We held hands, we walked arm in arm, we poked in the sand for shells and sand dollars, we waded, we swam, we kissed, we pressed our bodies against each other and told each other how loved they were, and then we did it all over and over again. I think we walked about four miles. Any further and I would have had blisters; I wasn’t used to walking on the sand.

After we got back near the car we spread our towels and lay side-by-side still talking. Kim told me more about her business. This year it was going to be over a $70 million dollar business, but it was growing at about fifty-percent or more per year. She could grow faster but she couldn’t find the talent and skilled workers fast enough. She had a pretty low debt, good credit and was the sole owner, not a bad place to be. Even better was the excitement in her voice when she talked about it and what she was doing. She was living the vision she’d painted for the energy industry.

She got me talking about the management consulting work I’d done and was involved in. I’d migrated from technology consulting to management consulting twenty years earlier. I worked with several dozen large Fortune 500 and FT1000 companies to help them redesign their business processes, develop new strategies, implement major changes in their businesses, and come up with innovative and completely new ways to operate. More recently I was helping companies set up internal groups to do the same thing within their own organizations. For the past five years I’d specialized in energy providing industries particularly those that offered the promise to wean the world off of oil and fossil fuels. Most of my work was in the U.S., but some was in Europe and Japan. I guess I got pretty excited when I talked about my work, too.

After Kim and I roasted in the Florida sun for an hour on each side we decided to leave the beach and go back to Orlando, clean up and find a romantic spot for dinner. We left the beach about six thirty, were back at the hotel by seven thirty, and sitting in a booth in Tiffany’s holding hands at eight thirty. Tiffany’s was a five-star restaurant specializing in their romantic ambiance. Kim looked radiant; her normal warm glow was enhanced from spending part of the afternoon in the sun. Somehow she’d made her hair look as though she’d spent hours getting it just right. The rest of her looked exactly right, too, particularly the sexy black sheath dress and spike heels she’d pulled from her suitcase.

Kim leaned forward in her attentive way and engaged my eyes, “Okay. Now we have some uninterrupted time and I want to know what you meant yesterday when you were talking about your relationship with your wife a while back. If I connect the dots with some of our earlier discussion I am guessing she had another lover.”

“Oh, you are very perceptive,” I said in astonishment. “Yes, that was exactly the case. After we’d had our discussion about rules, love and support, and having what I guess you’d call an open marriage, Mindy fell for a guy she was working with; they fell for each other actually. Before anything happened she came to me and asked permission to pursue the situation; I explained to her that she didn’t need my permission, she needed my love, support and trust and that I freely gave these to her.

Mindy just went full-tilt into the relationship with John. I honestly felt a bit like I’d been cast aside, but when I mentioned it, she assured me that wasn’t the case. Our daughters were needing a lot of attention and I put my efforts that way whenever I felt miffed. I declared in my own head that what we were doing was a big experiment, and it certainly was as I tested about every emotion you could think of. I admit I had to especially work on my own jealousy; I think jealousy is a conditioned response by the way. That passed over our first six months together as I came to know John and his motives.

I went on, “John joined our marriage for a while; he’d just gone through a divorce. I liked him almost immediately. We talked about our values and what was important and he agreed with them. No, more than that, he became a disciple of them and found, as I had, that life is better when you make them a way of life. Mindy and later another young woman named Loren were the beneficiaries of the love John and I gave them.

“In hindsight, I think John and Mindy seduced Lauren into the relationship so that I wouldn’t feel so left out. Whatever, it worked. Lauren and I were in love and enjoyed a very active physical relationship while my wife and John were doing the same. Often, we’d all be together. It was very sexy and gratifying.

“Unfortunately, about five years later, both of them had to move away, in different directions.”

Kim said, “Keep talking, this is fascinating. So, this was a viable foursome for a while?”

“Yes, but Loren had to move to the west coast. She runs a chunk of the west coast and pacific-rim operations for CTC - Computer Tech Corporation. When she was with us outside Boston she’d just started to move up the ranks as a high-potential employee. She’s married now and has some stepchildren. We helped her grow and move out of her comfort zone and accept the risks that her new jobs gave her as she moved up the ladder. Loren also didn’t love herself too much when she came into our lives; we loved her and showed her how to love herself.”

I went on, “John got recruited away from the Boston area about a year after Loren moved away. Mindy, John and I were a threesome for that time, yes, a ménage å trois. We both loved Mindy very much. They were making love almost every day. He had an apartment near their work, so they’d have ‘lunch’ there. Then we’d have a threesome in the evening after our kids were asleep. On the weekend mornings, Mindy would just leave the house and go over to his apartment for a long time. I’d take care of the kids.

“Eventually, Mindy realized that she was abusing John by not being all that he really wanted. She told me one day that John needed to break with us and find his own base in life; she didn’t feel she and I were his long-term home. He needed a full-time wife. She encouraged his job search and a search for a relationship that would be more exclusive to him..

“Mindy confessed years later that John asked her to come with him to his new job, but she told him no. I’m sure he was disappointed. John eventually married. He had two sons from his first marriage and I think he got a couple of more step-kids when he married. As with Loren, the intimate side of the relationship ended when the frequent proximity to each other ended. Mindy and I went back to a couple relationship that at least externally looked pretty conservative; we still held the love and memories of all the times we shared with our friends.”

“So, all this ended about ten years ago,” Kim asked?

“No, really more like twelve years ago,” I said. “Sometimes it seems like it was all like yesterday. The emotions we shared were quite intense at the time. We talked a lot to be sure we were on track with each other, too. We wanted to be sure we kept going in the same direction.”

Chapter 5 - Intensity

“What did you get from the years you were in those relationships?” Kim asked.

I started, “They went on for almost five years. I’ve thought about it a lot usually with a wish to repeat it all. I admit that going into it, Mindy and I were very naïve and had lived in a cocoon that was our comfort zone almost all the time.

“I’m an engineer by training and relationships had been a mystery to me before we started to talk about them and redesign our life around a new set of values and philosophies. John and Loren moved me out of my comfort zone and opened my eyes to the infinite possibilities that love and sharing can bring. As in any shift from one’s zone, it was tortuous some days.

“I’m more aware of the responsibilities I bring to a relationship than I was before. Love is not always selfish; I used to think it was,. We’d talked about creating and being responsible for our own happiness before John and Loren came on the scene. In practice, though, what I learned about besides how to do that is love and empathy. You don’t need to solve a loved one’s problems by changing radically but you do need to sympathize. There a fine line in there.”

Kim said, “You are a mind-blowing individual. I haven’t thought so much about relationships or how they might form around me since I was asked to go steady in the ninth grade.”

“I tell you all this,” I said, “with a little fear that you’ll get up and walk away, that I am still very unconventional in my thinking, way out of the box. You should know that I live IN the box just about all the time, but I’ve been outside enough to know what’s out there and what the possibilities are.” I shot her a sheepish grin.

Kim leaned in and kissed me. “No, you haven’t lost me, in fact, quite the opposite. You are so deep in some areas I’ve barely even thought about. I know my half-sister June would love to talk to you about this sometime; she really into this stuff. I think your philosophy is very close to how she is living her life, and perhaps right on target.

“God, I could talk to you about this for hours and hours and never be satisfied. The discussion about our business today was the same; I hated for it to end. You gave me a zillion ideas. As far as I’m concerned we need to build in more and more intimate time when we can talk without interruption, without a conference hanging around.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Today is Thursday. The conference ends tomorrow with the lunch. What are your plans for the rest of Friday and the weekend?”

Kim said, “I was going to fly up to Camp Forge, Pennsylvania, to see my half-sister but she’ll understand if I cancel. It’s not a family event or anything. She’ll be curious as all get out and I can deal with that later. What do you want to do?”

“I want you to fly up to Amelia Island with me. It’s a short flight and my home’s there as I told you. Come and we can play for the weekend. I haven’t even been in the house in a month; I’ve been living out of the condo I have in DC since I have two active clients near there. That was where I flew in from on Tuesday when I met you.”

“You’re on,” Kim said. “I accept.” She clapped her hands with glee and kissed me again. I was really getting used to all this affection. I think she was, too. Moreover, I had flashes about where it could lead. I wanted more of her.

We went back to the hotel and made mad, passionate love to each other twice I’m proud to say. We fell asleep in each other’s embrace and awoke to each other’s love. Kim and I went separate directions again in the morning, meeting associates, talking to clients, doing deals, and trying to do deals. I saw Kim at another luncheon table near where I sat; she had an attentive audience to something she was saying. I had trouble taking my eyes off of her. After lunch there were a few mundane remarks that closed the conference, and then the meeting was adjourned. Many attendees raced off to the airport - the airline side.

We’d both arranged for late checkout from the Intercontinental, so after lunch we gathered our luggage, checked out, put our bags in the car and headed to the general aviation side of Orlando airport. We both settled our accounts and I went over with Kim the route up to the Fernandina Beach Airport, familiarizing her with procedures for transiting Jacksonville International, the runway layout, traffic pattern, and location of the FBO and where I’d park.

We agreed we’d file MCO direct to FHB - my ‘home’ airport, and pulled her Jeppesen chart for the airport up on our iPads and I ‘penciled’ in some key points. We both filed IFR even though the weather was VFR all the way. We get good treatment leaving Orlando and up around Jacksonville that way. A few minutes later we each picked up our clearances ‘as filed’ from MCO clearance delivery and started our engines.

As agreed, I took off first so I’d be on the ground when she arrived. She could spot my plane and head for the FBO and parking area a little easier that way. I went from tower frequency to departure and heard Kim’s voice pop up on the frequency about three minutes behind me. We’d agreed to monitor 122.7 Mhz in case we wanted to talk but all we did was just briefly say hello over that channel. That frequency was algo the CTAF or common traffic advisory frequency for the Fernandina Beach municipal airport. If there were planes in the pattern there, we should hear the calls.

Kim heard my handoff to Jacksonville Approach and followed me a few minutes later; then I was cleared for the visual approach into Fernandina Beach Airport. Kim followed and a few minutes later we landed on runway nine, cancelled our IFR flight plans on the ground, and taxied to the parking area. Kim parked beside me where I’d indicated.

I knew the airport staff and was warmly greeted. I’d left a car at the airport. I pulled the car from my hanger to near where she parked, walked back and pushed my plane into the hanger with my small motorized tug and closed the hanger doors. We put our luggage in my car. Kim said she was impressed with my Florida car; it was an old Porsche 944 I’d had for almost thirty years. I got the car used; it had been a repo. I introduced Kim to my friends at the FBO and helped her check in, a job made easier since she was staying with me and they had all my contact information.

My Florida home overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. Neighboring houses were close by, but we had mutually allowed the vegetation to grow thick and lush between our homes so each one seemed like an isolated oasis. I explained to Kim that Mindy and I had bought the land during a real estate downturn about fifteen years prior and gotten the property at a song; we’d built when rates were low and builders were crying for work.

Kim was blown away as we pulled through the electric gates into the circular driveway off of Route A1A. The two-story home was superbly landscaped and presented well. Front to back there was a lot of glass; as we went up a few steps to the front door you could look through the house and see the ocean about three hundred feet away over some undulating dunes. Unlike other parts of the island, we were supposedly well above where any hurricane surge might come.

Kim kept saying, “Wow!” I explained to her that I called this my “Wow House” because all my visitors always walk in and go “Wow”. I gave Kim a walkthrough of the house, adjusting the air conditioning, hot water system, and turning on some of the circulating fans as we went from room to room. Many of those things I could control from my cellphone but hadn’t bothered while I was in Orlando.

I saved the master bedroom to last. The suite was an octagonal extension from the house with four wide floor-to-ceiling windows facing the ocean. The glass was one way, no one could see in, even at night when the lights were on inside. The king-size bed was situated so you can put up the shades and lie in bed and look at the ocean. It truly was one of the most spectacular rooms I’ve ever been in and it’s mine. The living room and family room share the same view. An oversized swimming pool graces the back deck; you can be in the fresh water pool and also see the ocean if you stand in the shallow end. The house was built around the backyard. All of these are some of the “Wow!” factors that Kim responded to.

I pulled Kim to me and kissed her. She responded and said, “Shouldn’t we shut the blinds?” I explained about the one-way glass to her. From the beach and even the pool deck all you saw were mirrored reflections. The glass gave privacy and also helped relieve some of the burden on the air conditioning.

Kim threw herself into my arms and started to undo my sport shirt. I was equally enthusiastic about removing her blouse and slacks. Soon we were hugging in the nude, my erection rising to meet her wet mound and to get trapped against her abdomen. We rubbed together and let our passion build. Kim pulled me right over to the window and stood in a very exposed way to the few people walking on the beach; posing in a lewd manner, she waved frantically but no one paid her any attention. After laughing at her ‘exhibitionist’ behavior, she plunged back into my arms, kissed and then we went to the bed, tossing the spread into a pile on the floor as we got in next to each other.

I suggested that I pay special homage to her pussy being that it was National Pussy Day. Kim admitted that she hadn’t seen the announcement but thought that we should honor all such special holidays. She reclined against the pillows looking past me out to sea.

I lay between her outstretched legs and slowly began a tantalizing and amorous assault on her pussy, initially with my tongue and then with fingers and tongue. I gave the whole area little butterfly kisses and breathed hot air on the key parts of the area. While I did this I reached up with alternate hands and kneaded her taut breasts. Kim moaned and held my head, directing me in small increments to various nearby parts of her anatomy. We were both in seventh heaven. I loved to eat pussy and after such a long dry spell, this was a real treat.

After about ten minutes of this, I suggested that she close her eyes and give in to the pleasure. She quietly closed her eyes. I talked to her about love and how beautiful she was in mind, spirit and body. I increased my attention to her clitoris and her G-spot using two hands. Her breathing intensified. She made a series of little moans each a second or two apart from the next, and then she came with a small ejection of girl fluid into my mouth. She squeezed my head between her thighs as the exhilaration swept through her body. I occasionally tongued her clit as she floated back to earth; each time I extended the attention to that part of her beautiful body she twitched from head to foot.

Gradually she opened her eyes to rejoin the world from her transformative experience. She gave me a tender smile and pulled me up so we could kiss. After a few moments of my holding her gently, she ran her tongue down to my breasts and nipples that are extremely sensitive and then down to my pubic area, circled in little dots and dashes around the area, and then inhaled my semi-erect cock. I hardened immediately.

I watched as she did amazing things to me. Now she had me twitching and moaning. Finally, I pulled her up and said, “Straddle me. Let’s make love.” She inched her way back up my body, licking my nipples again. When she was in position over me she slowly lowered her moist cunt onto my cock. Penetration was a celebration of our love. We did not rush the thrusting even though I think we both had inclinations in that direction. Instead, we turned the experience of our union into a Tantric meditation focused not only on sex but also in making our union more intimate and expressive about our love for one another. We talked and whispered to each other.

We extended our love making to a half hour and then to an hour. I had not cum but Kim was able to experience several ‘mini-orgasms’ as she called them. I was certainly stimulated and hard as we experimented with the Tantric techniques and a number of positions. Kim told me that she wanted me to cum inside her; that she was ready for the welcome event. We kissed yet again and we turned so she straddled me again. She stroked my chest with her erect nipples and allowed me to suck them, encouraging me to suction a little harder than I had been doing.

My sucking and biting of her breasts triggered the muscles in her moist tunnel to begin their contractions and spasms. I thrust deeply into her, meeting the increase in her pelvic thrusts into me with equal energy. I know we could both not only feel but also sense the orgasm of our mate; we had reached a connection that was not only physical, but also mental and spiritual as we made love.

The explosion of my body fluids into her body was no surprise. Kim exploded at the same time, flooding us with her ejaculate on the outside as I did the same deep inside her body. We looked longingly and with love at each other. The ocean surf crashed in the background as it always had for a million years.

We lay together for over twenty minutes not saying a word to each other. We were alert and attentive but just silent and meditative. We kissed often and fondled frequently. Kim eventually excused herself to go to the bathroom. I followed a few minutes later.

“Put on your bikini and we’ll walk the beach,” I suggested. She agreed.

In five minutes, we walked my simple boardwalk over the dunes and down to the wide ocean beach in front of my home. Looking back at my home from the beach, we saw the full row of expensive homes of which mine was just one. On my land and in the house, you have no feel of neighbors being as close as they were.

We strolled hand-in-hand in silence for a long distance. Kim was deep in thought and finally said, “Our making love back there,” she gestured over her shoulder towards the house, “was the most beautiful experience in my life. We touched each other on so many different levels it was …” she paused searching for a word, then found it, “scary. I’ve never had that kind of out-of-body experience. You did that to me. It was wonderful but scary. Wow!” She pulled me to her lithe body and kissed me oblivious to the other people walking the beach and admiring our love - and Kim’s hot body, no doubt.

“You rocked my world, too,” I said. “I’ve never done what we did before - an hour. I wouldn’t have believed it was even possible for a man to do that, particularly a man my age. You excite me in ways to you can’t imagine. You talk about levels - yes, you excite me on many, many levels.”

Kim said, “I read an article a while back that talked about both men and women, their sex drives, and their performance. One statement that I remember was something akin to ‘Use it or lose it’. I think the more you have sex, the more you are able to have sex, and the more fun and pleasurable it becomes.”

I chuckled, “Then I guess we’ll have to use it a lot more than we’ve been doing.”

Chapter 6 - Trouble in Paradise

We walked the beach some more each of us deep in thought. Kim finally said in a downbeat way, “You’re seriously worried about our age difference, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s more than just my age,” I admitted. “I’m twenty-years older; I know I shouldn’t worry about it but I do, even if fifty-two is the new forty-two? Somehow I think I won’t live up to your hopes and expectations for a partner and that I’ll lose you because I’m too ancient. You’re young and athletic; as I get older I’ll be even less resilient that I am today, especially in the sex department - ‘use it or lose it’ notwithstanding. Hell, I’ll die years before you even start to get old. That’s been my biggest worry since last Wednesday. I’m scared, too, and I don’t know what to do about any of this except brood over it all, which I’ve been doing whenever we’re not together. You caught me out just now.”

Kim stopped and hugged me. She looked deep into my eyes, “Nothing I can say or do will make you feel adequate except to say ‘Thank you’ for what you’ve given me these few days and in particular the last two hours.”

She paused and hugged me again; “I should share my big worries with you. You’ve arrived; you are where I want to get to in my life, in my career. I mean you have this wonderful house on the beach, a place in Maine you mentioned, and the condo right in downtown DC - and next to Lincoln Center, wow! I’m blown away and I’m even intimidated by it all. I’m thinking how I can ever achieve such greatness in my life, have the toys I want, and make the kind of contributions to society and business that you’ve made?”

She glanced at me then went on, “More importantly, you have such wisdom and have done such deep thinking about life and relationships and family and all. It scares me to think about it. You’ve got answers to questions I didn’t even know existed! Moreover, I know that we’ve only scratched the surface of that whole topic. I feel like a little kid looking up at a super-hero. I’m not worthy to even be in the same room with you. I’m not near your equal; I’m so far behind that I’ll never catch up.”

I offered with a forced chuckled, “Well, that’s what twenty-five years of bumping into the right obstacles will get you, as well as the balls to charge $ $1,000 to $2,000 per hour as your billing rate. You end up with possessions, and while they’re nice, they’re not a light in my life like you are for me. I don’t see you as a kid and it’s not a race. Take your time; enjoy the journey. He who dies with the most toys, does not win. I can see by the look on your face that there’s not too much I could say to you to make you feel adequate right now is there?”

Kim shook her head “No.” We just smiled weakly at each other. I was suddenly at a loss for words. I was wrapped in my own insecurities. She was wrapped up in hers. I mean here was the this most beautiful young woman, and I had fallen for her head over heels. Yet, even as we stood in the sand I could feel her slipping away from me. I wanted her, yet the gods were against our union. Our grip on each other was failing.

I said, “Can we learn to live with our inadequacies? Can we create a lasting relationship here - the two of us?” I looked at Kim and she had tears rolling down her cheeks. She clutched at me and just whispered, “Oh, Ron; Oh, Ron.” I was starting to choke up, too. In that brief instant we each knew we’d lost the other.

We walked back to the house in silence still with our arms around each other. Neither of us felt worthy of the other. The sun was gone from the sky leaving only a rosy hue as the evening twilight fled. The eastern sky above my home was almost dark when we reached the house.

We cleaned up, dressed up, and I drove us down to the Amelia Island Resort for drinks and dinner. Our dinner conversation was ‘neutral’ and often touched on the expansion of her business. We strolled around the resort after dinner talking about nothing in particular and everything in general. We stayed away from the sensitive subjects we’d found in each other’s lives including our ages and our relationship. I remained at a loss for words. I know we both had a million things to tell each other but nothing came out. I couldn’t think what to say to hold us together. I was glad it was dark; the people we passed on our stroll couldn’t see the tears in my eyes - and probably Kim’s.

We made love again back at the house but it didn’t reach the intensity or touch us on as many levels as it had earlier. We cuddled and slept pressed against each other throughout the night. I took comfort in it and I think Kim did, too. We were both hoping that some overnight miracle would solve the impasse we’d reached. In the end, it was wistful thinking on both our parts. Nothing had changed by morning.

When I woke up, I knew Kim was leaving; she wasn’t going to stay the full weekend. She packed and I drove her to the airport and helped put her luggage in her plane. We kissed goodbye. I told her I loved her and then she was gone into the sky on her way back to North Carolina. I stood and watched her plane takeoff and bank to the north and then climb until she was out of sight. I sighed and drove back to my empty and lonely home. I cried a lot that day and the next … and the next. I grieved my loss of the most fabulous person I’d met since Mindy.

I convinced myself that I was right about the age thing. Twenty-two years was too great a gap. I was ready to wind down my career and she was just starting hers. She was a go-getter, I’d already gotten. She wouldn’t have wanted me making suggestions to her throughout her life; I had all this ‘wisdom’ I’d called it. What good was it? God, I was such an ass thinking that we could develop something.

Further, I figured I’d grossed her out by telling her about the foursome and ménage-a-trois that figured so prominently in my life when I was just a little older than she was. What was I thinking to share that highly unconventional situation with someone I’d just met? To her I am just a dirty old man with a sordid past and kinky sex habits.

And then I beat myself up over my wealth. I had to admit to myself that I was trying to snow her with the Porsche and houses and all. I overdid it. I scared her. She’d even used those words; “It was scary,” she’d said.

And then there was my own insecurity. Women don’t like insecure men; I shouldn’t have shown weakness. I should have been the rock for her and her insecurities. But I am the way I am, and she should have loved me just that way. Love is forgiving, especially unselfish and unconditional love. Or is it? Was my basic philosophy of life and love all wrong? Was my philosophy and vision for relationships just totally warped so much that it could never work in a lasting way?

I moped around through the start of the following week. I finally flew up to Washington and lived out of my Watergate condo. My clients were tolerant of my heads down attitude that week. I told them I had a lot to do to keep adding value to their projects and this was just one of those weeks when I was in “production mode.” The problem was I kept moping around the week after that and the week after that and so on. I think I hid it well though.

I tried to call Kim a couple of times but either I hung up before the call was completed or her secretary told me she was busy and couldn’t take a social call. I didn’t leave a message. Perhaps she’d told her assistant not to take calls from me. I finally stopped. I wasn’t exactly sure what I would have said. My bad crying jags went on for several months and then I decided I had to do something to turn myself around. I steeled myself to life without Kim.

* * * * *

Washington has more single women than men, and over two-thirds of the population is single. Doris Miller, an acquaintance in her mid-forties, was surprised when I called in early February and invited her to dinner and an evening performance by the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Kennedy Center. I’d been away from Kim for four months by then, and decided I just had to get out and do something to help me move on.

We had a lovely dinner nearby the Center, and then strolled over for the performance. About all I could think about was Kim. Calling Debbie had been a huge mistake. I couldn’t even envision taking her to bed, which was quite a change from how my horny brain should have been working. I even reminisced about Mindy, but didn’t say anything out loud. I was Mr. Suave and Cool, and I struggled to be a good date.

After the performance, we took an Uber to the Marriot for some late drinks in the bar, and then then I escorted Doris back to her nearby apartment. I was sure that she wanted me to come in. Instead, we shared a polite kiss at her door, and I left and went home. Damn! I cried again over losing Kim. I wanted her, but without all the complications and insecurities we both seemed to invoke.

I thought about Kim for hours every day in spite of my resolutions to the contrary. How could that beautiful young woman have touched me so deeply, so fast? Would I ever get over her? I knew I eventually would, it would just take a lot more time than I was allowing myself. My heart ached and grieved.

Further, my thoughts about her were as fresh as the day she left. Also, I could remember in detail every second we were together - our conversations, our meals, our walks, the beaches, and our intimate moments.

To yank at my heart even more, I opened the mid-April issue of Fortune magazine and there was Kim’s picture and a brief article about her and her rapidly growing business. I tore out the article and carried it with me for a while then decided it was making me feel worse not better, so I just tucked it away in a drawer.

One Saturday in May, I was sitting at my Apple computer in my condo when the phone rang. I answered and was surprised by the caller’s question, “Is this the Ron Hume that met a woman named Kim about six months ago at an energy conference in Orlando?”

“Yes,” I said suspiciously.

“You and I have to talk,” a woman’s voice announced. “I’m Kim’s sister, June Caldwell, and I’m in DC and I hope you are, too, and it’s imperative that we meet, if only for a few minutes. Can I buy you coffee or are you free for lunch?”

There was no further explanation, but I remembered from Kim’s comments who June was in relation to Kim. I felt all sorts of stabs of pain and sorrow over hearing Kim’s name and thinking of my lost love. I let her question hang for a minute as my mind raced with all the unasked and unsaid things in my short relationship with Kim.

I spoke cautiously lest my pain show through. “Yes, I’d be glad to meet you, and lunch would be a better option given the time of day.”

We arranged to meet, and thus I met June an hour later in the lobby at the downtown hotel where she was staying. As I arrived, there was only one woman that could possibly be June. She was a total knockout and every man in the lobby was drooling as they looked at her strolling about the area looking at the artwork.

June was as beautiful as Kim but they did not look alike; I recalled Kim had said she was her half-sister not sister - same mother. June was a tall, lanky blonde that could easily be in movies - she was that gorgeous and she was a bit flashy and sexy. She was dressed in a summer frock that was both functional and sexy. She also wore four-inch spike heels that just invited men to gape at her sexy legs. June looked to be a year or two older than Kim.

June’s face, makeup, and overall appearance made a statement about being both casual - just thrown together, and carefully planned and orchestrated to have the effect on others that she was having. She certainly worked her magic on me as I greeted her.

As we went into the hotel restaurant, June asked for a table or booth away from others because we had some ‘serious talking’ to do. The maître d’ looked suspiciously at the two of us, shrugged and led us to an unoccupied part of the restaurant. We sat in an ill-lit booth. I worried about what the ‘serious talking’ was about.

As soon as we were seated and alone, June bluntly asked, “Do you love my sister?”

“Yes,” I said unequivocally and without hesitation. I choked on the word and tears came to my eyes in an instant. I pursed my lips to keep from breaking out with a sob. Finally, I was able to elaborate; “I love her more today than the day we parted. Our being apart hurts, but …”

“Well, she loves you, too,” June interrupted. “Only the two of you are acting really dumb and you need someone like me to step in and get the two of you back together again.”

“How’s that?” I asked, looking through my watery eyes.

“Well, first let me tell you that she told me all about your five days together in Florida - and I mean ALL.” June raised an eyebrow and smiled at me with a somewhat lecherous leer. “And, let me tell you that I had to pry most of the good stuff out of her to find out why she has been in such a morose mood for the past half-year. She’s lost her mojo and I’m betting that you have, too.”

I could only nod in agreement. She was right. The light in my eyes had gone out and every time that I thought of how I’d lost Kim I knew the reason why.

The waitress came and we ordered. My mind was not on eating.

June went on, “You think you’re too old for her. Well, you’re not! Love doesn’t care about age! You silly man. Get over it. She tried to tell you but you let your own insecurity - based on what I don’t know - get in the way. What did you do, convince yourself that you weren’t worthy?”

“Yes,” I said as I stared at the table. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I blotted my eyes with my napkin. I had unhappiness oozing from every pore. I was glad we were relatively out of the public eye.