Chapter 1

Some things happen where there is just no plausible explanation: sometimes it happens through religion, sometimes because of a Good Samaritan, a gift from a secret admirer or it’s just serendipity. The latter caused the coming about of my good fortune with those Waldron women.

I was fifty-three years old at the time, in a different place than I had been since falling in love with the magical person who had become my wife. She was the keel of my stability that I lost to cancer just a few years ago. Like so many people I felt sure that something like this would never happen to me.

At Connie’s funeral people offered the same lame words I had said when people I knew lost a loved one: “If there is ever anything I can do for you don’t hesitate to ask.” I’m not being critical; people just don’t know what to say. One woman, Callie Johnston, had lost her husband three years prior. “I understand what you are going through Morgan,” she said. “The most honest thing I can say is that it’s going to take quite a while before you’re ready to pull yourself up from the ground. Find stuff to do to keep from going nuts and don’t jump into some woman’s bed for at least a year. I can tell you from experience that it will set you back at least a year in your process of getting your life back.”

My boss’s partner, Cary McDuff, whom I didn’t know very well had lost his wife a little over a year ago. Commiserating with me he took out his calendar and said, “Anything I say to you at the moment Morgan you won’t even remember.” He pointed to the date a month away on the calendar. “I’ll call you on this day and we’ll set up a breakfast or lunch. Ok?”

I didn’t expect him to call. But a month from the date he called and set up a lunch with me. He didn’t beat around the bush. “Put your house up for sale Morgan. It’ll be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done but that house has always been Connie’s and it always will be. If you live there alone, you’ll be living with a ghost.” I resented him saying that. “If you decide to play the field or just date, no woman will want to come into that house. She’ll not want to feel the competition of the woman who gave you all those years of happy marriage. If you remarry under those circumstances, you’ll increase the likelihood that your marriage won’t last. You need to get out of there and put it in the past.”

As Connie’s disease progressed, we stopped having sex. In shared suffering we became celibate. I even stopped getting erections. It was like someone had laced my food with saltpeter. Connie had always been a highly sexed woman. We were both active, even a bit kinky. For the first couple of months after she died, I was in a fog. As the fog began to clear I began having dreams about her, mostly lighthearted dreams that took place in our early years. Then I started getting erections again at any time of the day. The dreams included sex with not only Connie but with fantasy women as well, some of whom I knew well and some I had merely seen.

While Connie was still alive and healthy a few of my friends were going through midlife crises. Two had affairs with younger women. They wound up getting divorced and married the woman with whom they were cheating. I can’t say that I had a full-blown midlife crisis, but I was living vicariously through my friends. Connie was critical of these guys and would zap me and compare me to them when I ogled younger women. She jabbed me when she saw me gaping at teenagers. Though I was never tempted to stray in that direction, I had a few erotic dreams on the subject. In reality, though, I knew that sex with a woman more than ten years younger than me would never happen. The decision to sell the house took a while and it was a difficult thing for me to go through. When I finally signed the papers I told Connie, “I’m starting a new life, Babe.”

Just after renting a great apartment, I went with a tour group to China and another to Europe a month later—binge escaping. Connie and I had both planned to travel a lot and I felt like a traitor. Had I not let the house go I would never have made the trips, at least on my own. Out from under the burden of the house, the trips helped with my transition. They were cruises during which I had shipboard affairs with two separate women. The affairs were good for my libido as well as my self-image, plus they made me aware of different things such as anal sex and squirting, which had both been unknown to me.

While Evelyn—the woman on the China trip—was highly sexed I couldn’t arrive at the comfort level I enjoyed with Connie. Cerise on the European Cruise was prissier and a one-orgasm-per-session woman. While Evelyn experienced many climaxes in a night or afternoon Cerise had one gigantic orgasm during a session that made her squirt. She was always embarrassed and had to clean up after each episode, which erased any romantic feelings on both of our parts. Having had the luxury of a twenty-four-year love affair with Connie the benefit of the two women on the cruises began to acclimate me to become comfortable in playing the field. As far as sex with my shipmates, my horns were being clipped if nothing else. I was finding out that regardless of the circumstance no matter the intensity of the sex there was no such thing as bad sex.

After living in the apartment for about four months I started feeling the change, I was becoming a worthwhile human being again and wanted to rejoin society on a more meaningful basis. I began viewing myself as a sexual person again rather than just some poor old bastard who lost his wife. The adjoining apartment was occupied by a divorced woman of forty who lived with her twenty-year-old daughter. I had seen the mother, Krissy, a few times while I was doing some writing on my computer. When she went out, I could see her through the window of the second bedroom which acted as my office. I’d never before gotten a good look at, Her daughter, Rebeccah, until the morning they went out for a walk together and came back an hour and a half later. They appeared like best friends rather than mother and daughter as they ambled toward the apartment arm in arm.

Able to study them more closely I could see that Krissy, the mother, was more attractive than I had previously thought. She had natural-looking blonde hair, stood about five feet five inches, and was slightly built with an extremely attractive frame. She had blue eyes and well-formed, medium-sized breasts. It was plain that she kept herself in good condition. Rebeccah was about an inch shorter. I didn’t see a resemblance to her mother. Even as a much younger woman, she had slightly larger hips and larger breasts; I would say a C cup to Krissy’s B. She was good-looking—cuter than pretty.

As they were coming toward the building, they were both laughing, which was making their breasts jiggle, showing that neither was wearing a bra. While not perspiring visibly their pullover shirts were damp enough to highlight the fact that the morning sunlight was shadowing their prominent nipples. These two attractive women, enhanced by the gaiety of their laughter presented a pretty and alluring picture that brought pure arousal, the first time since before Connie died.

Rebeccah looked up at my window, spotted me, and waved, I waved back. She said something to her mother who smiled and nodded. Her mother gave me a shy kind of wave. Unable to keep from smiling I nodded back as it struck me that I was sporting the bulge of what could be termed, a “woodie.” I felt conspicuous. It was as if they could see my hardon through the wall and under my desk. Finally passing out of sight I heard rapid conversation in the hallway and the younger voice of Rebeccah urging Krissy, “Come on Mom, you’ll never have a better chance.” Just a few seconds later there was a gentle tapping on my door.

Opening the door, I saw Krissy standing there. She was smiling unsurely; her face was red, and her blue eyes glistened. It occurred to me that she was quite shy, doing something uncomfortable for her. Beyond her, I could see Rebeccah going through their door looking over her shoulder at me as she disappeared into their living room. Still breathing rapidly Krissy said, “I was happy to see you sitting at the desk through the window, Morgan. Rebeccah and I were talking about you.” She blushed redder. Appearing like she wanted to hide behind something. She went on, “Rebeccah said to me, ‘Morgan seems like a nice man Mom, why don’t we ask him over for dinner tonight?’ I thought you might be busy, but she said that it wouldn’t hurt to ask. So,” she took a deep breath, “W-would you like to come to dinner tonight?” She had a hopeful look on her face like a child asking to go for ice cream.

With a beaming smile, I said, “Sure.” Krissy had been popping into my dreams quite a bit lately; I even ended up in bed with her but woke up each time just as the head of my penis was poised to go inside her mouth. “Can I bring anything?”

“We’re having spaghetti, a salad, and garlic bread, how about a bottle of red wine, maybe cabernet sauvignon or Chianti Classico.”

“It’s a Deal,” I answered.

I had thought more than once about knocking on their door myself. I liked what I saw when Krissy went out for a walk or when she passed me in the park. But I was put off by the fact that her daughter was living with her, and I wouldn’t have known how to handle that situation if something with Krissy were to have developed. Each time I thought about it I didn’t know whether I was ready or courageous enough for that kind of approach. I’d been uncomfortable approaching women all my life. My wife approached me for starters. And the two women on the cruises contacted me first as well. It seemed consistent that Krissy—even though she was so shy—was the one to knock on my door.

I didn’t know what I was expecting. I had horny thoughts about jumping into bed with Krissy and didn’t think there would be any way I could maneuver her into bed with Rebeccah living in the house if such an unlikely situation were to arise in the first place. I figured that Rebeccah would be there with us that night to act as a buffer. So, I determined to leave my horny thoughts at home for the evening. If it turned out well, I would produce a plausible answer if a “neighborly” relationship might develop.