Chapter 23

There it was, the picture, Homecoming, a crown on Dani’s head, a black football player kissing her on the cheek, a signature scribbled across it, totally illegible. “This guy,” I asked her, “who was this?”

Dani had gotten her senior yearbook down from the top of our ‘junk’ closet. We sat on the couch going through it, looking at her old pictures, memories, there was the picture of the ‘creep’, Jimmy, the guy cheerleader holding Dani, in her cheer costume, standing on his shoulders, who she said kept peeking up her skirt; Jenny and Dani with their crowns and homecoming dresses; and finally, the picture of Dani, her escort kissing her on the cheek.

This was the picture that had started me on my coma odyssey, not knowing who he was, thinking that he was ‘the one’. Now, here I was, looking at it once again. “Who’s this?” I asked Dani, not that I didn’t already know, it was Alan Ryder, the subject of my dark fantasies about Dani, months of dreaming, things that I could never admit to my wife.

“That’s Alan Ryder, you know, the football player, went to the NFL, probably the most famous person ever from Kennewick.”

“And here he is, kissing my future wife, how’d that come about? You date him?”

Dani looked at the picture, like she was remembering. “No, we never dated, I had a crush on him, but he had a girlfriend, that night was our only time ... and it wasn’t a date, we danced one dance.”

She noticed my groin, the tent in my pants, giggled, “What, a picture of a guy kissing me on the cheek thirty years ago do that to you?” Then she looked into my face, “Honey, you think you’re up to it? It’s been a long time ... a really long time.” Her voice was ... pleading.

I answered her by setting the yearbook aside, leaning over and kissing her, our first real kiss since months ago.

It quickly grew totally out of control, frantic. Maybe my mind had thought I’d been having sex all along but my body knew different. Dani stripping clothes off, trying to maintain our kiss, wriggling her blouse off just wasn’t hacking it. She finally pulled away, tore buttons, body quaking, got her blouse stuck on her arms, “Darned thing!” as she tried to get it off, then her bra.

While she was doing all this, I was tearing my shirt off and pushing my pants down around my ankles, “Bedroom?” I asked her.

“No, too far away, just sit there,” and Dani pushed her slacks and panties down.

This was the first time I’d actually seen Dani totally naked since before. There was no tattoo. I had to look to be sure, it had been so fucking real.

My pants and undies were still around my feet. I’d started to kick them off but Dani didn’t wait, sitting her naked self on my lap. Until that moment I hadn’t realized how badly I needed my wife. The dreams were forgotten, the only thing in my life at that moment was Dani, her perfect, naked body, just about to...

Our mouths came together, I felt her hand on my dick, holding it, guiding it, the exquisite feel of warm silk enveloping it, “Aahh,” Dani let out a groan as she pressed herself down on me, so fucking tight. I gritted my teeth, eyes clamped shut, the cum rising inside me. It felt like our first time all over again. Hell, better than our first time, lots better, knowing what Dani had gone through for me the last months.

I’d never been an especially high-endurance kind of guy, able to stave off an orgasm like I assumed some guys could, but it hadn’t ever been that first penetration, either. This time, there was no holding back, the combination of it all, it was one of the most powerful orgasms ever, like an earthquake had hit our living room. Dani was spasming around me, too, her body shuddering, fingernails digging into my skin, four months of waiting compressed into seconds.

It had been like our first time – times ten! Not that our first time hadn’t been good, it had, damned good. But not like this, nothing had been like this ... ever!

Our bodies were wet with a sheen of sweat when it was over, we held each other, Dani breaking into tears, then sobs. I held her, her body wracking, until she finally calmed, wiped her eyes, and looked at me, “I thought ... I thought ... the doctors ... they said...”

And the sobbing started all over again, Dani’s arms so tight around me, her body wracked in sobs, minutes went by, Dani slowly coming back down from her emotional breakdown, that’s the only term that comes to mind for what she was going through. She finally wiped her eyes again, “Said ... you might never wake up ... so little brain activity ... thought you’d likely be... “ she held my face in her hands, just looking in my eyes, “thought I’d lost you...”

We sat, Dani on my lap, still impaled by my cock, holding each other, realizing the love that we’d come so close to losing. The doctors had made it clear afterward that I was a very lucky man, they hadn’t expected me to awaken ... and if I did ... I can’t even say it.

We went to bed, still naked, both of us laughing when I nearly fell over from the clothes still tangled and forgotten, wrapped around my feet. Unfortunately, that little excursion had drained me, sapping what little strength I’d built back up. I’d have loved to make love with my wife again but there was no way, just getting to the bedroom had been a struggle in exhaustion. I understood then why my doctor had said it’d be weeks. But yeah, it had been worth it, the most satisfying exhaustion of my life!

I dreamed it again that night, this time April, that mythical makeup girl, reminding me how badly Amanda wanted Dani to audition. The reality of the dream, so like those in my coma, made me wonder again if she really was ‘mythical’. Or if there actually was an April and an Amanda. All I knew for sure was that I had to tell Dani. But tell her what? And how?

The next day was Friday. Dani thought I’d enjoy another trip to the store. I knew she was right, too, I would. This time I even waited on a couple customers, simple things – one wanting advice on car wash, I pointed him to a product we’d promoted for some time, spray it on after washing and before rinsing and it eliminated any hard water spotting, fabulous stuff – and Kennewick’s water is hard, tons of nasty minerals, damned good for drinking, though. The other needed wipers for his car, I even installed them for him.

It felt good to be doing something worthwhile, even if just for a little while, even if being there for only that long tired me out.

Then there was our Office Manager, Betty, it was Friday, her day to be in the office. When she saw me, she came bounding out and gave me a hug that lasted far longer than it should have, even kissed me on the cheek telling me how happy she was to have me back, ‘I’ve always had a crush on you’ roared through my mind. When she pulled back, giving me her thousand-dollar smile, I looked into her eyes - deep green, just as I’d seen in my coma, but had never noticed before.

I wanted to but couldn’t tell her that she was the one who had pulled me out of the coma, at least in spirit, telling me to open my eyes. There was no way I could, she’d ask for details, how had she had anything to do with it? ‘Oh, you’d just stripped naked on my bed, told me to open my eyes before I was going to suck your tits and hopefully fuck you.’ Not gonna try to explain that one!

But during that hug, her chest pressed against me, my arms around her, I felt what I’d seen at that non-existent party. Betty was a woman with very definite feminine charms. If only she’d choose to wear something other than loose-fitting sweatshirts and pants. But I’ll never again think of her as ‘frumpy Betty’.

So much in my coma-dream that I could never reveal – yet felt I had to.

The dream came again Friday night, a talent agent looking for an actress for an upcoming movie, ‘April’ telling me once again that Dani was perfect for the part, right before I woke up wondering, looking at Dani sleeping beside me on the bed, a big smile on her face. I’ve never seen her as happy as she’d been since I ‘woke up’.

But I couldn’t imagine, did that dream actually mean what I thought it did? I wanted to talk to Dani about it but still had no idea how. I was afraid what Dani would think, we’d never, ever broached the subject, anything even remotely like my long dream, always a hundred-percent monogamous and more than happy to keep it that way. Twenty-eight years! How the hell did I talk about any of it without telling her all of it? Gradually, it took a long time, I went back to sleep.

Like before, though, it wasn’t gone in the morning, remembering what I’d dreamed in the night. I fixed breakfast for my beautiful bride, a crab and cheese omelet. At least my long coma hadn’t affected my cooking skills. Even if I say so myself, I make a mean omelet. After breakfast, Dani said she needed to do some shopping, mostly groceries, but she also said she wanted a new springtime blouse or two.

“Sexy?” I asked her.

She just smiled in response, slapping me playfully, “Pervert!” she said, and then was gone.

I puttered around the house, watched TV for a while, old ‘Office’ reruns, then got bored enough to vacuum the floors, mumbling that we needed to get a robot for that. At least I was getting a little stamina back, I managed about half the floor before I had to sit and rest.

There, on the coffee table, was Dani’s yearbook that we hadn’t put away from the other night after our little extracurricular activity. Thinking of that brought a very nice feeling and smile to my face. I picked up the album, leafing through it again, anxious to get back to the picture of Dani and her ‘lover’, at least in my mind.

There was a picture of him in the senior portrait section. I wondered why I’d never looked there before to learn his name. Maybe I had, and that was why I knew it ‘that night’. The portrait showed an even better-looking guy than in the football uniform. I imagined that Dani probably wasn’t the only girl with a crush on him.

And there was Daniella Foster, long before she’d become Daniella Shore, my wife. Her portrait was obviously professionally done in a studio, absolutely stunning. I stared at it for the longest time, imagining what it might have been like to date her in high school. Eventually, I turned the pages, looking for more pictures of Dani. There were several, she was a popular girl, cheerleader pictures, some other dances ... then that night, being crowned ... and the one...

“What, you fixated on that picture?”

I must have bumped my head on the ceiling, “God, Dani, you scared the shit out of me. How’d you sneak in so quiet?” She was standing right behind me.

“I didn’t. You must have been so entranced you wouldn’t have heard a herd of elephants ... what is it with that picture, anyway?”

I was embarrassed, my face must have turned bright red, I thought I was alone in my little world. “Just remembering ... that night of my accident ... I’d been looking at this picture then, too. Not sure if it was before or after I fell.”

She looked at me funny, and I realized what I’d done, my face burning. Dani walked around the couch and sat down beside me, “After? How?” she asked.

I looked back at the picture, Dani’s eyes, there was something... “You told me the other night ... before...” I squeezed her hand remembering the sex we’d had. Pretty sure she was, too. “ ... said you had a crush,”

She snuggled up beside me, sliding the yearbook to her lap, not saying anything, until, “But, you said you didn’t know if you were looking at the picture before or after your accident, explain.”

I looked at Dani, her auburn brown hair falling over her face, so gorgeous. “I ... I...” was scared shitless at that moment, trying to put together a thought. “guess that was when the dreaming started...” Everything that night was still so vivid in my mind, so ... fucking real ... yet, not. “It ... I ... was looking at that picture...”

Dani glanced down, noticed my dick was making a tent big enough that a family could sleep in in my pants. She giggled, “Not this time, studmuffin, you’re going to tell me this time.”

Studmuffin? She’d called me that one other time in my life that I remembered, don’t remember the details except that it was something pretty damned traumatic.

“You’d gone out with Jenny, I was hungry, thought I’d get a pizza, this had to be after I’d fallen and was on the bathroom floor. But, in my mind I went outside, everything was weird ... the whole town, like I’d gone back in time ... to 1987.”

I closed my eyes, remembering every tiny detail, even the cheers Dani and the others had yelled, their cheer routine I’d watched, Funny, I didn’t remember noticing so much detail before, “It was homecoming night; you, Jenny, and another girl riding onto the track (a running track around the football field), you being crowned queen ... that kiss. The black kid, I didn’t know his name then, catching passes. Then the homecoming dance...” I was off, back in my dream world, Dani was totally silent.

“But after ... where my mind went really weird ... you and him ... he took you home to your house ... and I watched ... the two of you in your bedroom...”

My face was burning, it had to be bright red, looked at Dani, the astonished look on her face.

“You thought ... Alan and me ... that night...? All from that one picture?”

I nodded, “And so much more. It was your first time. Remember how even before that night I’d been asking you about your first time?”

“Umm...” Dani started, “can I say something here, maybe a little admission ... I said the other day that I had a crush on Alan...” this time it was her face turning red, “I ... might have ... understated that just a little. Alan was going with Marci Applegate...” she turned the yearbook back to the portrait pages, pointing to an absolutely beautiful, sexy-looking blonde, “that’s her, everyone knew she was putting out ... and I was so jealous. That night ... I wanted it to be me, only danced with him one time, but ... I’d have cheerfully killed Marci to be in her shoes the rest of the night.”

“The big boobs might have been a factor, too. You might have noticed my nearly non-existent ones.”

I was dumbfounded, Dani? Wanting – commenting on Marci’s boobs, complaining about her own? Maybe there are some things about the real-life Dani I don’t know, too, like in my coma, “So ... you ... never...?”

She shook her head, “The crush never went away – well, I guess eventually ... especially after I met the love of my life, but we never went out, he never knew ... was too engrossed in the gorgeous Marci to notice my drooling, I guess ... course there were a couple-hundred other girls just in my class,” she laughed, “I never did get the chance to kill her.”

“Guess I do kind of like your dream, though,” Dani went on, leaning over, kissing me, setting the yearbook aside.

This time we made it to the bedroom.

This time my endurance was MUCH better.

This time the earth shook no less.

I wondered at the intensity of our love-making, another earth-shattering experience.

Afterward, my naked Dani snuggled up to me, nibbling on my ear, which, after twenty-eight years, she knows is a major erogenous zone for me. “Seems someone liked the idea of a high-school me with a stud, huh.”

I rolled her over and nibbled on a nipple, “Seems someone else likes remembering what might have been, huh.”

We both had a fit of the giggles at what memories and imaginings from so long ago had done to both of us, before I said, my courage very much encouraged by Dani’s reaction so far ... and her admission of her ‘more than a little crush’. “There was more, too, much more,” I added.

I started, letting Dani nibble on that ear while I talked, “When I left your house after you and Alan had ... you know ... three times ... it was back into 2020. You were home, in our bed waiting for me, I tried to tell you what had happened, what I’d seen. You thought it was just a dream, except I described it all to you and you were confused ... until morning ... an old wool jacket was hanging downstairs, one that I’d had as a kid, but had been in the back seat of my old car earlier. I still have a hard time understanding ... the whole thing was a dream. I was on the bathroom floor the whole time, until you got home and called 911.”

My body was shaking, remembering, my brain still having a hard time accepting, trying to make sense of it. Dani held me, whispering that it was all okay, just a dream, that nothing like that had happened.

It took me probably a good ten minutes before I could speak again. “That was only the beginning,” I told Dani, “my dream, there was so much more.”

She climbed off the bed, “I’m anxious to hear, all of it, but it’s past lunchtime and we’ve worked up an appetite, I’m hungry.”

I lay there, scooted up, leaning back against the headboard, watching Dani walking toward the bathroom, wearing nothing except a pair of slippers, realizing just how lucky I was. That this intelligent, fun-to-be-with, sexy, beautiful woman had chosen me all those years ago was a mystery that would likely never be solved. I laughed at the thought I had, that old TV show ‘Unsolved Mysteries’, televising the mystery of Daniella and Robert, it was a mystery they wouldn’t be able to solve, ever. This woman was quite simply the best thing that had ever beset me. How I’d taken her for granted all those years. NEVER AGAIN!

I hadn’t even noticed before, but Dani’s hair was much longer than I remembered, falling over her shoulders, several inches down her back. She’d never worn it long before, beautiful – sexy!

She dressed, then fixed us both a wonderful imitation crab salad for lunch. Maybe not real crab, but damned good, anyway. I love salad.

“I’m going to Jen’s studio after lunch, her dance-exercise class, you should come along, would be good for you,” Dani told me while we were eating. I’d completely forgotten about those, Dani had been going to Jenny’s Saturday afternoon class for almost as long as I could remember. “I haven’t been since before your accident,” she added, “anxious to get back.” I’m sure those sessions are a big part of the reason that Dani’s managed to maintain her sexy body all those years.

But me go to her dance class? No! Not something that even remotely interested me. No way in hell was I going to a dance class!

I changed into sweats in the guys’ locker room. Dani can be more than a little persuasive, including showing me the new tights and open-back, tight-fitting exercise top she’d bought. “Jen helped me pick it out,” she said. “Some pretty ladies there, too,” she added, with a grin on her face.

And besides, Jen. She is undoubtedly, in my mind anyway, the sexiest woman on the face of the planet, with her tall, curvy, dancer’s body, and long, flowing, blonde hair framing that gorgeous face. She is the epitome of female beauty and sexuality, not even accounting for the fact that her every movement is instinctively sensual. If she’d been willing to move away from the Tri-Cities, I think the world would have been at her feet. The professional dancers on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ don’t even begin to compare. She was gorgeous when I met her before Dani and I were married and had only gotten more attractive as she’d matured.

Even before my accident, I’d had many a hard-on thinking about her. That ‘night’ with her was still fresh in my mind, as if it had happened the night before. That part of my dream was something that I knew I could never reveal to Dani, not under any circumstances.

I wondered about that dream, could I really tell Dani about it, what I’d imagined she’d done? How I wanted her to do it? I shuddered at the thought, it all seemed so foreign, so ... impossible. There was no way that I could actually want Dani to do anything even remotely like those trips to Tampa. Speaking of which, how did I know the things in my dream?

I’d done a little research since waking up. There really is a ‘Pirate Water Taxi’, boats just as I dreamed. Jackson’s Bistro Bar is there, too. I’d stared at the picture on my computer, the same building we’d sat in front of, Dani in that sheer, golden dress, no bra, her skimpy, black panties taken off right before we left Alan’s house. How had I known? How the hell could I have? The glass front, tables in front, bay a few feet away - EXACTLY as I’d dreamed. I’ve never had an interest in Tampa, never looked it up on the internet, never looked at pictures. How the hell had I known?