Chapter 7

"You OK?" He asked after letting her enjoy her moment.

"Yes, I'm so happy, I can't remember being more so. Even if we part tomorrow and I never see you again, I know dreams can come true. I only wanted a chance to tell you how I felt and feel you inside me again. I was afraid you might hate me or think I hated you. That's bothered me all these years ... and the thing about the smell, my scent? With you it's taste. This sounds naughty but, I've only tasted two in my life, but you, your cock, taste so much different that the other, you know ... Matt's. I didn't want to bring him up, but you are distinctly you." She said uncomfortably.

"You've never had a fling just out of curiosity, never a guilty pleasure, never used your natural lure to get someone you were attracted to?" Jared wondered.

"No, I was tempted many times, but I somehow thought I would always end up with you, and you were my only fantasy. If we don't work out, I'll probably move on to make other discoveries, but I'm not wanting for more. You know the pleasure I get from my lover." She said in a sudden sullen tone.

"This is a shitty question, but relevant, were you as good, as satisfied with Matt?"

"For a long time, yes. I realized that, even with you, I loved the act of sex more than I loved my partner. But when it finally came evident that Matt had no character and was shallow, I saw that characteristic ran deep in you and was the reason I took up with you in the first place. You were real, he was fake. Sex was so good to me that I forgot the reason why I gave myself. Stupid, huh?" Meg said sadly.

"We were both pretty stupid with a lot of things about us never figuring the lifelong gravity the situation held. Try as we might, some of those things can't be changed." He added to base her thoughts in reality

"But relationships are so much more than sex and that's what drove my fantasies and hope for you. With Matt, our life, our marriage, our world was crumbling beneath us, but the fact I was getting great sex blinded me. When I realized what had happened I wanted to give up sex forever, but my little fantasies of you kept me going. With any other man I'll have to be so careful, I know what I have with you." She explained.

"Isn't the fact that the basis for relationship with me is already there making it easier for you, coloring your world all rosy, though?" He asked.

"No because with you if I take away the sex, there is still something there, my heart still pounds for you, I want to be with you. We're so good together." She said tearing up "You have character and are a decent man. We solved problems together and you opened your heart to me."

"I'll bet if you think back you'll find it was like that with Matt at one time too."

"Jared, I'm going to tell you something that only the Illinois courts, my family, and Matt knows. You'll probably think I'm the stupidest, most gullible person in the world. Matt lost his job, or as he put it to me, he was laid off. He said "as soon as the markets leveled off," they would call him back. He said he was low man. Even that wasn't true. I felt horrible for him and we made love that night and I went to work the next thinking all would be fine. After a month of no unemployment checks he told me there was a problem with how he filed and it would be straightened out and he would get the back checks. We scrimped and ate like welfare people, but my baby was happy at home with his daddy and I was going to work with a smile on my face every morning with a big sex glow. In to the second month a friend of mine casually asked me to scratch off her lottery ticket since I was so lucky with ours. I didn't know what she meant and she said she had seen our name on the lottery web site as a $10,000 scratch off winner. I went and looked and sure enough Matt MacDonald of Wilmette was listed. I checked the phone book and there was only one Matt MacDonald in Wilmette. I got suspicious and went down to the Chicago Exchange to look up a girlfriend who worked with Matt. I went into the office where Matt worked and she saw me and rushed to meet me and take me out into the hallway. I knew something was up then and then she started asking me all these confusing questions and I had to ask her to stop and TELL ME what happened. I thought Matt got laid off during a slow period. She told me Matt was fired for being out of work so much, for possibly stealing a clients money and a whole laundry list of other things. I went home and confronted him and he broke down into a crying mess and told me a story so wild I couldn't believe it, but I've found out that it was all true. He had a gambling problem for a long time and after a time at work it caught up with him, hiding losses from me, a lot of drinking during the day, using up a lot of our savings and he even tried to get a second mortgage on the house. A client loaned him money and when he couldn't repay it they said he stole it. He lost his job and couldn't get unemployment because of the circumstances. He hocked some of my jewelry, and some of his mothers things to pay off people, and gamble more trying to get the big win. He DID win 10,000 on a scratch off and got almost 7000 after taxes. He used a few thousand to appease some gambling debts, put a thousand back in our savings and blew 4000 in one afternoon trying to make the big kill. Jared, during this time I felt so bad for him, thinking he was poor old Matt who got laid off, we made love everyday, sometimes a couple times if Declan didn't fuss early. He used and abused my love for him, my pity for him, when all the while he was lying and deceiving me and my baby. I threw him out of the house that night and he went to his parents, who live near Columbus in Ohio now, and they bailed him out of everything. The son of a bitch had the balls to come back to my doorstep saying he was reformed, all paid off and ready to re-start our lives. When I thought of him making love to me after lying all day to me, I was sick to my stomach. While we fought, and it was just words, he never touched me, I thought I saw something in his shirt pocket and I asked him to show it to me. He turned all red and owned up to buying a $100 in scratch off lottery tickets that morning. He apologized profusely for not throwing them away, as he had intended, before he got there. He wasn't sorry for buying them, he was sorry for not hiding the evidence. We were definitely through! Once he got a job, got professional help and a decent place to live, mostly thanks to his parents, I let him start taking Declan as the courts had prescribed. Declan missed his Daddy so much and Matt seems to be really trying to make himself better. He was a rat husband, but he is a good Daddy."

"Wow, it sounds like the guy had a real sickness, not that I condone any of it. There had to be many times when he could have stopped himself before he got too deep." Jared observed.

"That's my thinking too. His parents begged me to give him another chance, but I can't think of him without remembering how he lied and deceived me. If he weren't Declan's father I wouldn't care if I ever saw him again." She said reaching back to find Jared's hand.

"So your plan is for me to take you away from all of this?" Jared asked absently.

Meaghan sat up quickly pulling the sheet up to cover her breasts.

"Jared! You don't think I came here to hornswoggle you into something, do you? I'm not that devious and I hope you don't think..."

"Whoa, calm down. I didn't think that or mean for you to think I thought that. I just meant that it MUST have crossed your mind that if we hit it off again you could be rid of him." Jared qualified.

"Well, you know I've fantasized about being with you and even getting back with you and with those thoughts, yes, I thought about that. But I came here to meet back up with you, mend some fences and get good and laid. I wanted to show you how much I care for you too, and make you aware that I was "out here". I didn't expect, even under the best scenarios, to have a TV movie ending to my story. Jared, no matter WHAT happens to me, whether I marry a prince from a far away land or end up living on the street, I will ALWAYS love you in some special way and because of my situation, AND your situation, I'm able to express it right now." She said as she sat up again holding the sheet in front of her and looking down at Jared before she fell forward and hugged her drawn up knees to herself.

She looked off into nowhere and mused aloud, "Maybe coming here tonight I've fucked up my only real hope."

"No, no, NO! You haven't! You did the right thing coming here because otherwise I would have never known your situation. My situation is easy to follow in the sports pages. If you think that I'm walking out of here tomorrow all happy because I got laid without being swept off my feet, you're wrong! You are, and have always been the fantasy of my life. But, I know you understand the situation of my life with its obligations to work, and with another tie to my heart that I just can't walk away from, no matter how I want it to resolve or continue."

She turned her head sideways and looked back and down at his face, "Do you remember The Bubble?"

Jared laughed and nodded. The Bubble was an imaginary force field type of idea they got from watching Star Trek re-runs. They would put their fingers together, aim at the floor and swoop their hands over their head and back to whatever was behind them as they both buzzed through their teeth and then gave a WHOOP as they drew The Bubble. They imagined they could be inside The Bubble and do whatever they liked and no one could see and the outside world didn't matter.

"Can we stay in The Bubble tonight? Let out all of the talk about everything and just leave our adoring hearts together to make love out of everything we do, be it just breathing, sleeping, or maybe getting a little sexy again, or if I have my way, getting A LOT sexy again." She said with a pixie smile, still not moving her head from its knee-top perch.

"We can try." Jared said smiling as he put his arm out and waited for her fingers to join his.

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, W H O O P!! " They shouted out giggling like kids as she fell on him and locked her mouth to his.

Their kiss was deep and exciting, and most of all long! Meg finally broke it and looked into Jared's eyes.

"I'm with a man that I love and I'm laughing again. I wondered if I ever would. Let's get some sleep and let our bodies rejuvenate a bit. We can wake up early and finish some other business, and I mean SEX business, since that's all that's ever in The Bubble. What time should I set my phone alarm for?" She said reaching for her cell.

"I have to meet Joe at 8 for breakfast, and I'll need an hour to shower and get some numbers together, How about 4 or 5? My hotel wake-up is for 7" He answered figuring times in his head.

"I can do that, it's barely 10 now and getting 6 hours sleep will be more than I usually get. After you're out of the shower I'll get in and be gone before you have to explain me away to anyone." She said pressing buttons into the tiny black square before looking from the corner of her eye at Jared. "Kinda like high school, sneaking around, huh?"

Jared hugged her as she put the cell on the bed stand and cuddled back into him. He draped an arm over her and after some small talk, they fell asleep, exhausted.

An electronic version of the Mexican Hat Dance screamed from the small phone on the night stand before Meaghan rousted herself and reached for it turning the alarm off. She took a moment to shake the cobwebs from her mind and then she smiled broadly to herself. The warm body next to her was who she fantasized waking up with for the past 6 months or so. The room was dimly lit by the light from the bathroom as her eyes adjusted and she turned in the bed to wake Jared. He, however, was already wide-eyed and smiling at her when she turned.

"Good morning, I dreamt about us and high school all night. I woke up about 2 minutes before the alarm. I was looking at you. You're still a hottie, very pretty." He said to her, almost whispering.

"Thank you, it wasn't easy finding the hottie in me. I was about plus 15 pounds when I got married and after Declan was born I kept more on and lost my shape. Just at the end of last summer I started to diet and exercise again. I got rid of the guilt foods, the chips and ice cream, and set my sights on getting a new man. In January I decided I wanted the new man to be my old man, YOU. I knew then as I do now, that it's a long shot. What's important is that I set goals, the weight, my shape, and you, and I've achieved them. I'm motivated." She said knowing she had gotten into his mind at least.

If things didn't work out for them, she knew she had made her best effort.

"What do you think of jumping in the shower together, real quick, for a body wash, refresher and wake up?" Jared suggested.