Chapter 7

I was pretty beat from the athletics of the evening and went right to bed myself. Once I settled in I realized that I really liked Gail and despite her years of foolishness and self pity, she was still a nice person inside. I really liked how sexual she was, even though I wouldn't always expect the kind of spontaneous passion we had tonight. I realized she had done without for a long time and she got overwhelmed. I wondered if I should feel guilty about driving the situation, which I thought I had. She definitely took charge at one point which reduced my culpability, at least in my mind.

When I woke up in the morning at the radio alarm I tried to listen to the news but felt uncomfortable for some reason. I sat up to see Gail sitting in the hallway out side the master bedroom. She had a blanket and a pillow and had apparently been there for awhile.

When she looked up at me it was apparent she had been crying for a while.

"Gail? What's wrong? I thought everything was fine last night."

"Can I come in and talk to you? I've got to straighten a few things out."

I sat up and patted the bed and she came in sheepishly, avoiding eye contact.

"I have to apologize for being a whore last night. I never had a guy give me butterflies like you did. Three years ago when we left school I was jealous of Haley and just thought you were the nicest guy. When you popped back in my life it was a sign from God and there I was covered in my own feces I just figured it was "just MY luck". When you finally made me realize that so many of my real memories of Mom and Sis were happy ones and they made me smile, I realized how foolish I had been all these years. I wasted years crying over them, when I should have been celebrating them. So, I wanted to use my rebirth to win you but now I've used my crush and my fantasies for nothing. Our first date ended like a night getting picked up in a bar. I'm sorry and I hope you can forgive me. I'll make you proud if you get me a job. I won't fuck THAT up." She said quietly with little emotion.

I took her hands into mine.

"Gail, you didn't fuck anything up and I think no less of you now than then. We got caught up in passions last night. My mind raced with expectations of what could be with you, and I think you did the same. I really like you Gail. If I didn't I wouldn't have let last night happen. I would never use you like that. You don't think I picture you acting that way with just anyone, do you? I'm just as interested right now as last night. You've lost sleep over nothing. Trust me on this one. You're over analyzing." I said hoping to allay any fears she had of blaming herself for something stupid.

"I may have been easy before, but I didn't blow guys on the first date. I think that makes me a whore"

"Gail, I saw that as pure affection for me."

"It was, but I don't expect you to take it that way. I never trusted condoms. Two of my girlfriends got pregnant with condoms and I never let anyone finish in me with one. I didn't want to leave you with just a hand job after you were so beautiful to me." She said in defense of herself.

"Gail, everything about us is special at this point. This wasn't a first date. It was a lot more than that. You had needs last night and your body sought to take care of them. I doubt you could control everything that happened. Now we just have to decide if we want to continue to see each other romantically or not." I said hoping to see a smile.

"Do you?" she asked with a pouty lip.

"Have you made YOUR decision yet?" I asked.

"I made my decision on graduation day in Minnesota back in 2001. I knew you were the guy that would fill my dreams and fantasies if I allowed them. I saw you from afar all four years and listened to all of Haley's little stories. Depriving myself of a chance at you was part of my joy depravation. I knew you weren't in Haley's plans if you moved away from her. She told me that and it made me sick, but I never thought it would happen." Gail confessed.

"I think we could make a good couple, at least for a while. By that I don't mean I want to use you, but I just wonder how much of your fascination is your fantasy and after other guys get interested, I might not seem so special." I wondered aloud.

"Oh believe me, YOU ARE SPECIAL. But I'm willing to take this at your pace if you don't trust your heart. We have lots of time to think about it and explore ourselves a bit." Gail told me, encouraged by my words.

We got up and took showers and packed up things for a week or so in Atlanta. We left with the clothes on her back and stopped at a mall and picked up female essentials and a few outfits to wear at work. We picked casual wear for a week for her and she changed into a simple outfit there to travel with.

Early that evening we pulled into Atlanta to my digs along the Chattahoochee. I showed Gail her own room at the house making sure she knew the sleeping arrangement. Cohabitation sounded like fun, but I felt it was important to our relationship that we not get that familiar. We didn't say there wouldn't be sex, but maybe we should keep a few mysteries from each other. When I used the word mysteries I noticed her chuckle under her breath.

"What's so funny about that?" I asked.

"Last night you openly admired my ass and even touched my asshole, and I also told you I had done it there before. I don't think we have too many mysteries." She said shaking her head.

"Knowing how you like your coffee, whether you sleep in your back or side, if you can drive a standard shift, are you Apple or IBM, have you ever had chicken pox, do you snore, can you cook, how do you like your eggs, I think we have a LOT of mysteries and a lot to learn before we make the commitment from roommate to lovers." I told her emphatically.

"Are you saying we shouldn't have any sex, either? There are likes and dislikes there too. I think we need to know what each other likes and doesn't. I need to find out things about you." She said with a ray of hope in her horny voice.

"Sex? Of course! If it happens, it's all good. What is there to dislike about sex?" I said.

"You avoided one thing last night and its one of my favorites." She said turning her eyes in embarrassment.

I thought quickly and wondered if she wanted to be skewered in her butt and I missed the OK. I looked at her quizzically.

"What I did to you last night? Going down on you?" She said with the reddest of faces, perturbed that I made her say it.

"Oh God no! I didn't avoid it. It just didn't fit into the game. We moved too fast. It may be my favorite part of male passive sex." I told her.

"Male passive sex?" She said screwing up her face.

"Things that don't involve friction to the penis that are still satisfying by the sheer joy it brings to your partner. Like teasing your nipples, rubbing your clit, thrusting fingers, looking for your spot, all that good stuff." I said as if reading a menu.

"I hope we can become lovers. I like to be pleased without being pressured to "pay" for it. When Haley asked me stuff about sex with you I was soooooo jealous. I guess knowing you were a considerate lover, and I had just been with selfish ones, made me think so much of you." She said as if I wasn't really there.

"Gail we ARE lovers." I said as I put my arms around her and turned her back to me. I draped my hands around her stomach and intertwined my fingers as I spoke softly in her ear. "Last night wasn't just some spur of the moment fast fuck to make each other get off. It may have seemed like that but if you think back you remember I went as slow as I could to make sure you enjoyed it. Watching you come was beautiful. My male ego wasn't stroked by that, my heart was. Your orgasm under me was moving. When you sought to make me happy in a way you knew I would like I took it as affection for me, not the act. We may not be "in love" but we are lovers. I wasn't just getting laid last night."

When she turned her head to the side where I spoke over her shoulder I saw tears running down her cheek.

"Thank you for opening up your heart and letting me know the score. You are so sweet. As I lay in bed last night I thought we might never be together like that again. Now I want you again right now because I know I won't feel guilty in the morning. Does that make me bad, or wrong, or a hypocrite to myself or you?" She said almost blubbering in her tears.

"I don't think so, but maybe we're too emotional for making love right now. We've spoken intimately about sex and love and they both feed the libido. I think we'll both feel better if we resist and let our emotions feed on the anticipation. It's been a long day and you have to make a good impression tomorrow. Let's go to bed and give ourselves a chance to think and rest on it." I whispered.

"You may be right. If we really feel special towards each other it can wait until the moment is clear. Our sex talk has made it a little cloudy." She said drying her tears.

She turned and kissed me deeply and said good night. It was early but we both needed the time to sorts out emotions and rest.

It was lonely in my king size bed but I felt happy with how we left things. I could have easily ravaged her body that night and wondered in the morning if it was feelings or horniness. As I drifted off into my deep sleep I heard the faint muffled sounds that I knew were her orgasm. Oh for the joys or personal satisfaction when your body calls. I smiled for her as I drifted off.

I hadn't set the alarm for the morning knowing Marie, the secretary I shared with all of the road people, would call to wake me. They usually didn't expect the road warriors to be in the office before 10. When we worked out of the home office we stayed on call until 6 or 7 and then the skeleton crew of one operator and one road tech took any emergency calls. They kept a few others on call. Most supply problems could usually be fixed remotely right on the grid. Leaks and shortages were handled by the local support people. When I was in Atlanta, I was officially "on call" after hours every other day. I usually was in the home office for 7 days a month, as were each of the east coast techs. Our "on call" time allowed us to work 4 weeks and get the fifth off as paid comp time. With my work with the Olympic team it worked out well, especially if I worked in my 3 weeks of regular vacation. So I worked 3 bases of operation and one week in Atlanta. From Estero I worked the Fort Myers and Fort Lauderdale offices, then a week in Mobile where I normally bounced between there and Pensacola, depending where problems cropped up. I had a good deal with the Residence Inn people up there so I felt like I was "home" more than I actually was. No where I stayed felt like a hotel and that was good.

Out of my deep sleep I became aware that I was not alone in bed. It took me a moment to realize where I was and if I was dreaming or not. I opened my eyes to 2 bright pretty eyes that looked at me with obvious affection. I remember thinking for a split second how beautiful these 2 eyes were now, no longer being muted with ugly black make-up, and yellowed and red lined by poor diet and sleep habits. As I focused more I could see she was on her knees on the bed, bent far over to look right in my eyes, my face, as if reading some outward emotion that my words might deny. The bottom of her back that showed just over her head revealed the split of her butt. She was nude and her breath was freshly tinged of mint. She rested her chin on her two flat hands.

"You're handsome even as you sleep. You have such character in your face. When I decided to come in here, I wanted you. Now I want you more. I decided that there was something different about you last night was when you were talking to me. You respected me. It was the first time almost anyone looked at me without pity or scorn in a few years. You understood when you looked at my eyes. I masturbated last night to fulfill my ache, but it didn't work. I felt as empty when I got done as when I started. It was you I wanted and needed. If you have any feelings at all for me, make love to me. Show me how and what you feel for me. Don't deny there is something there." She said almost as if singing to me, her voice sweet and clear like I hadn't heard before this week.

The sincerity in her voice melted me. If there were one doubt, one wonder in my mind about IF I could fall for her, love her AND respect her, it was erased now. There was something that I knew I missed in four years of loving Haley, four years of making love to her, four years of making her the reason I woke each day. Sincerity. It all sounded so foolish to me at this moment as thought crossed my mind, but then I thought about our break-up and that we never really cared we broke up. We said I love you for four years and planned to live the rest of our lives together and then she moved southwest and I went east and POOF. We were history. No wailing and gnashing of teeth. On-Off, hot-cold, slippery-rough. Haley knew it. She told Gail that if I moved away that was it for us. She wasn't even sincere or honest enough to tell ME. Now, here in my face was the woman who kept my image in the locket of her heart for all of this time, and she was telling me to make love to her. Something wiped away all the cob-webs of her aura, and made us each understand something about each other that we didn't know the night before. She found it first and her eyes told me. As of that moment I had never been taken by just the words and feelings of a woman, of any person for that matter. This is the point in the movie where the bells would ring and the screen would get all gauzy and they fade to the puffy white clouds in the blue sky, but it was really happening!