Part I: A Woman

He was leaning an arm against the side of a pay phone partition; he looked familiar in a 2X dress shirt that showed every muscle in his back.  Her eyes moved down to the slender waist accented by a black belt, and down to what really looked familiar: his hard, sensuous butt.

Would I like to workout with him between black satin sheets, she thought as she stood on the sidewalk in a shopping center with its soft glow of neon lights. 

His arms sticking out of rolled up sleeves reminded her of... who?  Then he glanced her way, and his black eyes were spellbound.  They stared at each other a moment before he dropped the phone, and they ran to each other.  He grabbed her off her feet, spun her around, and they kissed the way they’d been too innocent to do in high school.           

When they broke apart, he said, “Twenty years hasn’t changed you a bit.  You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.  What a sight!”           

Within minutes, they were buzzing down the highway, and he knew just the motel.  He turned into the parking lot, ran into the office, and back out in less than five minutes.  Then he sped around to the side of the building and parked in front of the door; they rushed into the room.

Undressing in a couple moments, they stopped staring at each other in quiet desperation.  The soft lights from the parking lot lit the room like a full moon.  In one swift and startling movement, he was beside her, lifting her gently into bed, but without the black satin sheets.  She didn’t mind.

They clung to each other as if they’d never separated long ago when they went to different colleges and drifted apart.  He stroked her long blond hair, then gently kissed his way down her body.  Her toes wiggled; she pushed her breasts up while he licked and massaged them; she moaned.  Her legs were already apart.  So he rolled between them and their climax roared and repeated for an hour.  Only then was passion spent enough to talk. 

“No ring?”  He asked as they cuddled together.  “Me neither.  What kept you from it?”

“Painting,” she answered.  “I’m obsessed with it.  And I’ve done fairly well.  I’ve been into surrealism for the last few years.  Even at a point now where I could live off my paintings, but I teach at the Art Institute, and that’s where my inspiration comes from.  It keeps me in touch with artists and new ideas.  What about you?”

“My obsession switched once I got to college from football to business.  Finally, I became a CEO last year, but it hasn’t cut back on obsession.  It’s been a long climb, and I still have irons in the fire.  And I’m intense about working out.  Gotta keep these muscles.  It keeps me feeling young.”  He gently kissed her again, and they snuggled even closer.

“Why didn’t you ever complain about my art?  Even in high school, I painted all the time.”  She ran her fingers along the side of one jaw.

“That gave me plenty of time for football and baseball.  Our lives just fit together that way.  And when we did see each other, we were intense about that too.”

“Like now?”  She asked.

“Yeah, like now.  All these years and it seems like only yesterday we were seniors and so in love, and still I love you.”

“I know.  Are you just in town for business?”  She asked hesitantly.

“Nope.  I live here,” he answered.  “How’d we ever split up?”

“We thought we were headed different directions, meeting new people.  We didn’t seem to have anything in common anymore,” she said.  “Remember?”

“Nothing but our love.  How could we have been that stupid.”  They chuckled over the kids they once were, wrapped their arms around each other even tighter, and enjoyed the silence and the warmth.

Part II: A Man

When she drifted into sleep, he relaxed against the sweat-soggy sheets and gazed at her face so full of innocence.  Her smile captivated him.  But as passion cooled, his mind returned to the reality of his life.  His face darkened, muscles tensed and twitched for the first time in his life as he thought over his rise in a Fortune 200 firm. 

I thought nothing of blackmailing my way up the ladder.  I’ve always rationalized it by believing it was the way of the world: I didn’t make reality, but I had to survive in it.  “How I envy your peacefulness,” he said as if she heard him.  While he watched the casualness of the rise and fall of her breasts, an odd heaviness settled into every muscle when it never had before. 

He brushed her lips with his.  Then he slowly dragged his arm out from under her, got up, and swiftly dressed.  He sat down to write a letter with motel stationary, hoping she’d understand.

Sammie my love,

What a wretched fate for us to meet when it’s too late to be together.  Forgive me for leaving you again.  My life is a tangled mess.  I‘m in too deep to change.   So innocent, you’d never understand how all this came about.  For the first time, I even feel shame.  Just know I love you with all my body and strength.  I won’t say my soul, because Satan stole it a long time ago. 

I still love you, Paul.

He put the pen back into his shirt pocket and hurried out the door, tears streaming down his chin.  He couldn’t bear to gaze upon her one more time.  While he was backing the car out of the parking space, he saw Sammie burst out the door with only a sheet wrapped around her, screaming his name.  But he sped on, crying all the harder.                                                                                               

After driving awhile, he pulled into a different motel, checked in with the duffel bag he carried in the car, went to the room, locked his door, and wrote a will, leaving everything to Sammie.  Then he hurried directly to the bathroom before he could change his mind.  After running hot water in the tub, he took his straight razor out of the bag and laid it on the porcelain. 

He was about to climb in, fully dressed, when Sammie’s face appeared between him and the water; he paralyzed.  All he could do was to stare at her image screaming his name.  Unable to move toward the tub or back away, he dropped to the floor, sobbed, and knew he had to find her again.