After the Reunion Ch. 13

Monday evening, September 25, 2028

I drove home from the airport with one hand on the steering wheel. Addie had a death grip on my right hand with both of hers. I didn't complain. I couldn't stop glancing over at my wife, just thankful that she was home. To put it bluntly, God, I was relieved!

After we got home, Addie read a couple of stories to Katie and Kevin: Winnie the Pooh and Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, two of the kids' favorites. Usually, that time of night, they're wound up and wanting to play, but tonight, they just wanted to sit with their mom. Watching them, I was kicking myself in the ass for putting what we have at risk for virtually nothing and vowed that it wouldn't ever happen again. Well, there was still Tanner and Tanya to throw a little fuel on our flames.

We tucked the kids into bed, then tucked ourselves in right after. It had been seven weeks; forty-nine days; 1,176 hours, since we had made love. But who's counting? My whole body was literally shaking when we undressed each other. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but oh my God, when I slipped inside her, it was like our first time all over again, except maybe even better. Both our emotional relief that we were still there for each other made the physical act about a hundred times more powerful!

That's not to say that there wasn't physical pleasure... and a whole hell of a lot of it. Addie's pussy had never felt tight like it did that night and I hadn't ever felt the physical squeezing, release and squeezing over and over again while we were making love. When I was groaning and commenting about how tight she was, she reminded me of the heavy Ben-Wa balls she'd had inside of her over the last month.

God, she felt good. I'd love to say that Addie and I made love for hours before I exploded inside her. I might be prone to exaggeration a little here and there, but in this case, anything that implied more than minutes would be an outright lie. Maybe even 'minutes' plural was stretching the truth. I think my spasms lasted longer than the lovemaking leading up to them.

I think Addie came, with her vagina spasming around me and her body violently shaking, but after what I'd witnessed the night before, I don't know how she would have with the comparatively little man inside her. I sure as hell did, though, like not in a long, long time.

Afterward, we lay in bed naked, snuggling and kissing. I couldn't help but notice the hickies on Addie's neck and tits, a reminder of what had happened the night before, then later.

"Samuel," I said, "tell me about last night."

I watched Addie when I said it. She flinched, I was sure of it. Then she took a long time before she said anything. "You saw us, I know you did. Then I called and left the phone on for you."

"It died. He just started talking about your family when the battery went dead..." I sheepishly added, "then the rest of the phone died, too... it sort of got itself killed."

Addie raised her eyebrows, silently asking me, 'what the hell?'

"I kind of got frustrated and dropped it... maybe pretty hard. It broke."

She laughed, "New phone?"

I nodded, "Yeah, new phone... but what was said?"

"Samuel just said... that he knows I have a family... and that he loves me... but admitted that maybe it's a bit more of lust, and he doesn't want to break up my family."

I realized I'd been holding my breath. I was relieved! But then wondered, "But what if... what if... he'd asked you to stay?"

Addie kissed me and hesitated before answering me, "Honestly? ...at the time I don't know what I'd have said. That scared me later what I might have done at that moment... but when he said what he did, it was the right thing to say and... I gave myself to him the rest of the night. We talked, a lot; and made love, a lot; I learned a lot about Samuel."

I wanted to know, "Like?"

She took a deep breath before answering me again, "His wife, I wondered why a guy like him is raising his daughter alone. Where's his wife? Did she leave him or what?"

"And? He told you?"

She nodded that he had, "He said she was in the military, too. As a matter of fact, he said she was one of only eight female fighter pilots the Navy has ever had on an aircraft carrier."

"Wow, she must be something pretty special," Then I wondered about the significance of the word 'was' and asked Addie, "But?" There had to be lots more to the story.

"They met in the Navy. He had just applied to be a Seal and she was a pilot. They were both on leave in San Diego and met at the USO. He said they saw each other off and on for a year, then got married and shortly after, had a baby girl. Leah, that was his wife's name, was on limited duty until after their baby came, then shortly after put her back on a carrier and the baby lived with her parents."

"During a lot of that time, Samuel was training to be a Seal. He said there were seventy-eight guys and four made it through. While he was doing that, she was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and one of those eight carrier pilots."

I was still confused, "So what happened?"

Addie faltered before she started again, "They were home on leave at Christmas. Lily was two. They had a little house off the base. He said their garage door opener was broke so his car was in the driveway and hers was parked on the street. She needed some groceries and pull-ups for Lily, so went to Walmart. When she got home, she parked in the same spot on the street. He said they lived on a corner."

Addie was trying to talk, her voice was so quiet, barely a whisper, I took her hand in mine. Whatever she was telling me was obviously difficult. "She was getting the groceries out of the trunk. A car ran the stop sign, hit another car, and knocked it into the back of theirs."

Now Addie was crying and I was horrified at the picture she was painting in my mind. "She was dead before he could get to her. He said there couldn't have been more than a split second that she could have even known there had been an accident... he didn't even get to say goodbye to her."

We were both quiet for a long time, except for Addie's soft crying. Then she started, "After he told me that, then I saw you and the kids at the airport, and it really came home to me what I could have lost," and she wrapped her arms around me, holding me tightly to her and lay on our bed shaking and sobbing.

"What about the other two cars?" I asked her, "They hurt?"

She shook her head trying to talk between her sobs, "Both their airbags went off and neither got hurt at all." She paused, then went on, "The car that ran the stop light... it was a mom driving, married, three kids, grade school and junior high. She'd been at a Christmas party and drank too much wine. She pled guilty to vehicular manslaughter. Samuel said he testified at her sentencing hearing that she'll suffer from remorse the rest of her life and that prison time wouldn't help anybody. The judge disagreed. He gave her the maximum four years, 'the consequences of drinking and driving'. She was paroled after two-and-a-half years in a minimum-security prison."

Oh God, what a tragedy! I was horrified; a woman killed, another normal, law-abiding woman in prison. My body shook with the realization of how easy it could happen to any of us.

"Samuel said he went to visit her in prison and told her that he forgave her, that he knew it was just a freak accident. He said they spent most of the afternoon crying together and they were both better afterward."

"He told me that he told her something he hasn't told anyone else... until me. He still feels like the accident was his own fault. Leah had been asking him to fix the garage door opener... if he had, she wouldn't have been in the street getting groceries out of the trunk.

Addie took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. "After the accident, he resigned from the Navy. Said his work was too dangerous and he didn't want Lily to grow up without either of her parents. It was after that that he went to work for Jonah. He said he really owed Jonah, because Jonah took a chance on him. He didn't have any experience managing anything."

I guess that kind of explained why Jonah was so thrilled with fixing Samuel up with a good woman. Too bad it had to be my wife.

Addie and I held each other and slept the rest of the night, then tried to resume some semblance of normalcy in our lives, again. Addie's tummy was starting to show a little growth. If you hadn't known her, it wouldn't be noticeable, but we did and it was exciting.

ooOoo

We met for lunch Tuesday and she told me, "Chocolate. I'm craving chocolate." I guess that's fairly normal for a pregnant woman, but Addie took it one step further, "I want to sell chocolates, good, hand-made chocolates." Who am I to argue with her. She's the one with the business sense that built the four stores from the ground up. I just follow along and help with the grunt-work.

That afternoon, after I picked up the kids, Addie came home and said she talked to Kayla about it and Kayla's all for it. "We even talked about where we could put a candy counter," then she laughed and said, "guess all I need is to find our supplier."

"We talked about something else, too," she said, "you haven't forgotten, have you? Yours and Kayla's night together?"

I sat with my jaw working up and down, no sound coming out. Forgotten? Hell yes, I had. Crap, I didn't know what to say, "What? Yeah. No." I was stammering. "With everything else, I thought..."

"You thought what? That we wouldn't do it?"

"Well, yeah, kind of, guess I did..."

"And disappoint my manager? I suggested this Saturday and she's all for it."

My cock grew at the thought of spending a night with Kayla. I thought about how she looked in that nightgown the other night when she backed out. But I didn't know if I could, thinking about Addie crying in my arms the night before and that last weekend.

But shit, thinking about that weekend just made my cock that much harder. Addie noticed, smiled and said, "I guess that's a 'yes'?"

I guess I nodded because Addie giggled, then started looking on the internet for 'Boise hand-made chocolates' Talk about changing the subject!. I kind of wanted to talk to Addie about Sunday night 'inside the cage' and this night with Kayla, but she was intent on scrolling the internet when her cell phone rang. She grabbed it, and without thinking or even looking at it, said, "Hi."

Addie listened for just a moment, her expression changing completely, "Yeah, this is her," she said. Then Addie's eyes became alert, her mouth began moving like mine had earlier and I wondered, 'what the hell?'.

"This. Is. Amber? That Amber?" she excitedly said, "Michelle is your real name?" She started grabbing at my arm, her face a model of excitement, mouthing to me, "It's her, it's her!" and pointing to the phone. "Oh My God, Oh My God," she was shouting, "we've wondered about you for the last twelve years!" I listened to the silence of Addie listening, wishing I could hear the other end of the call, too. Addie was too excited to think about putting it on speakerphone. "Tanya... and Tanner. They're married," she told 'Amber'.

Addie wasn't even beginning to calm down, "Jeremy? He's married too, to that waitress... thanks to you! She's a nurse now."

"Kirk? I don't know, we haven't heard anything about him." Addie was finally starting to calm down a little.

But not much, I guess, "Can we see you? Sometime, I mean?" She listened briefly, "Saturday? Oh wow! Yeah, we can do that." A little more listening, then, "Okay... no, you can stay here!"

"I'll text you the address... yeah," then a long wait and, "bye."

After Addie put the phone down she looked at me and excitedly said, "Do you know who that was?"

I laughed, "No, no idea!" and rolled my eyes at her.

She hit my arm with her closed fist.

Then Addie grabbed at her phone again and started frantically punching in numbers. After listening for a few seconds, she excitedly said, "Tawns, you know who just called? It was her, Amber... yes, THAT Amber... but her name's not Amber, it's Michelle." Addie stood and walked in the other room, her voice getting softer the further away she got, until I could only hear voices, not what she was saying.

I checked on Katie and Kevin. They were in their room watching The Mickey Mouse Club. Even with their three-year age difference, they like a lot of the same cartoons. After a little bit (little bit in 'girl' time, hours in 'guy' time), Addie excitedly told me that my Saturday night date with Kayla was off, that we were having company; Tawns and Tanner were flying in Friday night.

I thought about Tanya. God, she's gorgeous. I was looking forward to Friday night, anticipating it'd be with her. But first, we had other things to deal with. At the moment, reading stories to our kids. I let Katie pick out a book; she picked 'The Night Before Christmas'. I tried to explain to her that it wasn't close to Christmas yet, but that was the story she wanted.

Both kids sat on my lap while I read the story. Then it was Kevin's turn for Adriana to read his. Surprise, surprise, he picked out 'Winnie the Pooh' again.

After they went to bed, Addie and I renewed our conversation from earlier. Like I said, I wanted to talk about Addie's Sunday night, but she wanted to talk chocolate. It sounded like a 'delaying tactic' to me. She also said, "Volleyball season starts in two weeks. We need to start practice Monday."

"Addie," I said, "Sunday night. I want you to tell me, what was it like for you?"

Addie closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and said very slowly, to emphasize it, I guess, "I... have... never... been... so... fucking... horny!" She went on, "Jonah drove me nearly out of my mind with that fucking vibrator."

I made a little coughing noise, "Umm, that, sort of was... me," I admitted.

She stared at me for a moment, "You? You were controlling it?" I nodded, "You fucking asshole!" she said. I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of admitting it from Addie's reaction. Then her frown turned to a smile and she said, "I loved it! God, it felt good inside me!" She frowned again, saying, "It was Jonah that wouldn't let me come. I needed to so bad!"

I was curious, "What if you had? What would he have done?"

"I don't know. Stopped it and sent me home, maybe. Spanked me right there. I know I wouldn't have liked it. Pretty sure I wouldn't have seen Samuel that night." I thought back to what Jonah had said about being so ecstatic about getting the two of them together. I bet it wouldn't have mattered. Jonah had every intention of Samuel and my wife being together that night. The more I thought about it, I guessed that was the whole reason he had Addie come down that weekend.

Which reminded me of something else. I asked Addie, "What are you doing with the money you earned those two nights. Pretty easy money, huh?"

"Gave it back. Told them to split it up for the girls who work there. Seemed like it should have been theirs, anyway." She beamed, "Sure fed a girl's ego, though!" Then she added, "Would have loved to meet that sexy redhead... maybe next time?"

I sputtered, "Next time?"

Addie laughed, "Kidding, sweetheart. No, there's not going to be a 'next time'... still would love to meet her, though."

There's another thing I've been wondering about. Nothing about this trip, but about Jonah and his brother, Damian. "Hon, you remember that night you first met Jonah? You remember what he told you they did?"

She frowned a minute, trying to remember, "The t-shirts. He said they do custom-embossed t-shirts and offered to sell me some for our store."

"Yeah, that's what I remember you telling me about him. What's the deal? You haven't said anything about t-shirts since you've been going down there," I asked her.

The slight frown was still on Addie's face, "Methinks that might have been a little white lie. I kind of doubt at the time that 'I own a strip-club' would have gotten him inside my panties. T-shirts worked much better." The frown had disappeared, replaced with a laugh.

ooOoo

Addie was on cloud nine the next morning. She said she had so much to do: trying to find the right person who made candy, getting ready for the weekend to meet Amber/Michelle, and she said she had a thought about Samuel, too.

That night, after we read stories to the kids and put them to bed, Addie asked me, in her stern, 'angry' voice (when she uses that voice, it's a pretty good clue that she's anything but 'angry'), "Hon, I got a weird call from Tawns today. Did you by any chance, send someone an e-mail about her?"

I'm sure my face must have turned red, or white, "Umm," I tried to think of a way to lie my way out of this, "I, uh, might have," I stammered out.

Remember, after I first saw Ashanti, I said something to the effect, 'she'd give Tanya a run for the money for Playmate of the Year'? Well, right after that, I sort of looked on Playboy's website and saw that they were doing a pictorial and looking for beautiful professional women. I guess that I sent them an e-mail with a picture of both Tanya and Addie and a little information about them.

Addie looked at me with her head down, like looking over glasses if she had worn them, and said, "You MIGHT have? What, exactly does that mean?"

So I did a big gulp and explained what I'd done, making it clear that I had sent a picture of both of them so she wouldn't get the idea that I thought Tanya was prettier. But by then, I was curious as hell as to what had happened.

"Well, apparently you got someone's attention," she said, "Tawns said they sent her an email asking for more pictures... apparently, they're more than a little interested." Addie didn't seem concerned that she hadn't gotten the same email.

I grinned to myself, how cool is that! "She gonna do it?" I asked Addie.

"She didn't know, she was still in shock... they've given her a week," then Addie grinned, "but I hope so. She'd be a sure thing to get in the magazine... can you even imagine, our Tawns in Playboy?"

I closed my eyes for a minute, envisioning Tanya, a full-page spread; her Bo Derek looks, fingers linked together behind her head, maybe a little sideways, smiling at the camera, wearing nothing except a pair of sexy high-heels. Damn, that imaginary picture made me hard! How could they NOT pick her?

"Maybe we can help influence her this weekend," Addie added.

ooOoo

Thursday, Addie called me in the afternoon and said she and Kayla had just visited a little candy store in Meridian, Sarah's Sweets. "She let us try samples. Mmm, so good!" Addie said that Sarah said she'd even been in Hidden Gems (I don't think I've ever mentioned the name of Addie's stores before) and loved it. She's even more excited than Addie about expanding her business. She's going to help Addie with the candy counter and make a cute sign for the front show window.

Leave it to my wife to turn her craving for chocolate into a profit... and at the same time help somebody else grow their business, too.

Friday, Addie received a package from UPS, from Jonah. What now? I was dying to open it. Another set of Ben-Wa balls, heavier still? But why? He must know that Addie's not coming back.

I picked up the kids from daycare and school once again. They wanted to go to Dairy Queen for an ice-cream cone but I told them we were going to take them out to dinner after we picked up our friends, so that seemed to satisfy them.

We met Addie at her store and switched cars. Getting six of us into the Jeep would be a bit of a challenge, so left it at the store and took Addie's minivan, a twelve-year-old Honda Odyssey. We've talked about trading it in on something newer and nicer, but hadn't ever gotten around to it. Someday. Maybe next week. With the success of Addie's four stores, we could afford it.