Chapter 8

Waking up next to Maeve was worth the wait. Once we were out of energy, and it was impossible to continue without rest, I slipped away and spent some time looking in on Karen. That allowed me to catch my breath before I hurried back to spoon with Maeve. We’d finally collapsed into sleep sometime after three AM and slept straight through until the nanny’s voice woke me talking baby talk to Karen across the hall.

Sunlight slipped into her bedroom through a sliver between the curtains, and the morning glow rested on Maeve’s sleeping form. Neither of us made any repairs after our monkey sex, so her hair looked like it had been run through a blender sometime during the night.

That singular shaft of sunlight highlighted Maeve’s right breast, exposing it to me where it had escaped the sheet, and I was transfixed watching her nipple rise and fall with each of her breaths. I would have been content to watch her sleep all day had not Karen cried, breaking the mood and awakening Maeve.

She smiled the sweetest smile as she came awake. I already knew that I had it bad, but the shot of energy that welled up inside me when she smiled proved it all over again. I hurried to kiss her like she deserved before she had time to feel guilt for surrendering to me. Her mouth opened to accept my tongue and we enjoyed a few moments of silence before I rushed off to look in on Karen.

Before I could tear myself away from Maeve, she stopped me with her waking thought. “You were very naughty last night...” Her voice was like a narcotic to me. I turned back and made short work of reminding her of how urgently I needed her. I am sure that those thirty minutes of renewed passion and ecstasy did more to head off any morning after regrets than anything else we might have gotten up to.

Taking her back to the peak of her pleasure erased any doubts as to my commitment to our relationship. There was no chance that this thing between us could be a one-night stand. I was confident that Maeve saw the truth in my eyes. We spent two weeks in the glow of new love, sleeping late, making love at odd times, in odd places, and generally acting like love-struck teenagers.

Nothing stays the same.

Why is it that people can’t just ... be?

Maeve and I were in love. It was obvious as could be, but she couldn’t just BE in love.

Nope.

Maeve needed to screw everything up.

By the time we were home, she had experienced a metamorphosis. Like a caterpillar losing its shell, Maeve found her inner sexual dynamo and was frightened by the animal that always existed, just below the surface. It seemed as though the sexual hunger that we awakened in Maeve caused her to want to shrink away from me. The distance she put between us, emotionally and physically, was as painful as it was uncomfortable. After two weeks of perfect bliss between two sexually possessed lovers, Maeve built a wall between us that seemed a hundred feet high.

Rather than try to reason with her in that state of mind, I withdrew and focused my attention on Karen.

That made everything worse.

Maeve showed up early one morning to play with Karen and confront me. “Cal, we need to settle things between us.” Her voice was firm and very cold. “I know we let things get terribly out of control, but there is no future in this ... this ... THING ... we’re doing.”

Maeve couldn’t control the tears and they broke my heart. How could a man let the woman he loves suffer like Maeve was suffering, as she tried to break it off without breaking my heart?

I couldn’t.

That’s all that mattered.

“What do you want, Maeve? How do you want this to go?”

“I need to go home. It’s time that I stop acting like some random middle-aged woman, who picks up a young guy and falls stupidly in love with him, then, after losing her friends and social standing, spends the next ten years anticipating the day he wakes up and realizes that he was sleeping next to an old woman.

“I need to go home, take Karen with me, and act like Maeve Washburn again.

“I have responsibilities, Cal. It’s not like I’m twenty-one and rich, without a care in the world.

“Sure. It’s ok for you to take up with the rich widow. Your friends would probably want to buy you a drink for it, but mine will drop me like I just decided to take a job as a hooker...”

She was quiet for a bit.

“I’m forty-six, Cal. You’re twenty-one. There’s no bridge to that island. We’re too far apart in everything from age to public position.

“Everyone would laugh at me, Cal. They’d make a sad joke out of me. ‘Look at that old bag, buying her young hunk a sports car... ‘ I’d hear it behind my back, everywhere I went. And it would last the rest of my life.” She picked up her purse and walked out of my life, permanently.

... and she took Karen away from me ... forever. When I resisted, she simply stated the obvious. “A DNA test would prove that you have no relationship to Karen, Cal. She is a Washburn, not a Goodwin. Let her go with me where she will be safe and happy.

“Just let her go and avoid an ugly scene in court.”

For most of the next year, and for the sake of my sanity, I traveled almost non-stop. My travels took me to every interesting place in the USA, as well as all over the world. My days and nights were full and rich with history, elegance, excitement, and memories. From California to Casablanca, I searched for happiness. The jet I bought for traveling was just right for my need. Pete, at the company flight operation office, suggested it when I inquired as to what type of jet I would need to go traveling.

It was a Grumman G650. Top of the line in every way. The fuel tanks and expensive Rolls Royce engines handled trans-Atlantic flights like other jets handled Chicago to Philly. Pete knew where to find very safe pilots that I could hire, and he contracted all the maintenance of the jet for me. When you control a big block of stock, I guess there should be some perks.

With my new jet and all the time in the world on my hands, with enough money for ten lifetimes, I had it all...

I’d have settled for contentment.

Eleven months, two weeks, and three days after I kissed Karen and held Maeve in my arms for the last time, I was still painfully missing them.

I hadn’t been asleep very long when death came to steal my dreams.