I’m not sure what I was expecting, but when we got to the top of the stairs, the reception area was brightly lit, with some beautiful pictures on the walls. The receptionist was a young woman that would not have been out of place in any corporate reception.
“Hello, Lisa, Peter,” she said with a smile. “We need to do some admin first. I have a registration form for each of you, plus a questionnaire. I also need to take a payment from you to cover both the guest membership and the course fee.”
I think my credit card flinched when I put it into the reader, but this was all part of healing our marriage and worth every penny.
+++
The following morning, I woke up and had an arm over my face and a weight on my chest. I managed to raise my head a little and somehow during the night Lisa had turned and was lying across me with her head hanging over my chest. My first thought was how uncomfortable she must be, but she was sleeping soundly. I smiled to myself and started to stroke her hair away from her face while thinking about the previous night.
Lisa had taken one look at me after I had cleaned my teeth and returned to her room. I had my polo shirt in my hand and she had closed the door behind me and just kissed my back. Her arms snaked around my waist and undid my trousers. When I went to speak I was hushed, I tried to turn and hands were placed on my back to stop me.
“Step,” Lisa said, after kissing the back of one of my legs. She repeated this with the other, then took my trousers and top, folded them and put them on a chair.
I don’t know if she did it on purpose, but as she bent over, the bottom of her bum peaked from under the edge of her shirt. I took a step toward her, but she whirled on me, so beautiful and graceful in her movements.
“Bed!”
“Yes, ma'am,” I said with a grin. Lisa didn’t laugh and swallowed and she suddenly looked deep in thought.
I took her hand and walked her to the bed. “What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s nothing. You’re tired, you had a long drive and then had to deal with those wankers.” One other thing I loved about her; she called a spade a spade, and when it came to people, she called them exactly as she saw it.
We slipped under the covers and Lisa immediately cuddled up to me, pulling my arm out so she could lie over it. I got the hint and pulled her closer. There were gentle kisses, stroking, touching, I moved my hand down her back and cupped her bum. Lisa smiled and reached behind and pulled my hand up.
“How long are you here for?”
“How long will it take to get bored of me?”
Lisa sniggered. “I think you need to get back to your course before then.”
“In which case, I was thinking of going back after lunch on Sunday.”
She snuggled against me some more, if that was possible, and kissed my chest. “Go to sleep then, we have all of tomorrow.”
I kissed her head where it lay on my chest and that was pretty much it until the morning.
As I lay stroking her hair in the morning, I dozed off again only to wake up with a pleasant sensation moving over my groin. When I opened my eyes again, Lisa was looking up at me, smiling.
“Good morning, cupcake.”
I smiled back at her. “Morning, you. Happy birthday.”
With a smile and a final pat on the front of my boxers, she pushed herself up and kissed me on the lips. Lisa then pushed the covers back and got up.
“Come on, time for brekkie,” she said.
I went to retrieve my polo shirt, but Lisa took my arm, “Pfft, you don’t need that.” Then with a sly grin, she continued, “I want to show off my man.”
“Your man?”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.” It made me smile, how she raised her chin and didn’t look at me, just carried on pulling my arm.
Rachel and Emma were already up and about and I suddenly felt very naked as they both looked me up and down, before looking at Lisa and giving approving nods. Breakfast was nothing fancy, just some cereal and coffee, then I was sent up for a shower.
When I walked back into Lisa’s room, she was standing waiting in just a towel. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into a hug, but after a short kiss, Lisa broke off and went for her shower.
“Wait for me downstairs,” she said and then kissed me on the cheek and turned to leave the room.
“Yes, ma'am,” I said to her back. Lisa seemed to pause in her exit, but it was only for a fraction of a second.
About an hour later, Lisa walked into the living room looking beautiful. She was dressed simply in jeans and a sweater and sat down close to me, slipping her arm through mine.
+++
After we had completed the forms and questionnaires, I returned them to the receptionist.
“Thank you. I’ll take these through to Mike and he should be out shortly. He’ll want to have a look through the questionnaires first.” She wrinkled her nose a little and smiled as she finished.
When I sat down again, Lisa shuffled up next to me and put her arm through mine and rested her head on my shoulder. I just turned my head and kissed the top of her head.
“Okay?” she asked.
“I think… well, apart from being nervous as hell.”
“Yes, there is that,” she replied and giggled.
Next thing, a door opened and a very well dressed man stepped out and introduced himself as Mike. At a guess, I would have put him in his late fifties, a little shorter than me and slimmer too. His hair was white all over, but this seemed to add to the air of authority that he had.
“Peter and this is my wife, Lisa,” I said as I took his hand.
After shaking her hand too, he invited us to go with him.
+++
“Next left and there’s a car park,” Lisa directed me.
I got the rucksack out of the boot and hoisted it onto my back and then Lisa took charge, taking me by the hand, she led me on one of her favourite cliff-walks. A few hours later we were looking out over the Atlantic in a green meadow with patches of wildflowers dotted all over. I reached down and plucked a primrose and tucked her hair back over her ear with the flower through it.
“A flower for a beautiful flower.” Lisa softly slapped my arm.
“Dope.”
If I were to picture a picnic on a clifftop, this is pretty much how I would see it. For a while we sat in near silence, passing food back and forth, leaning against each other and enjoying the company.
At one point Lisa asked me to cut her a piece of cheese and rather than holding her plate out she opened her mouth. I cut it a little smaller and popped it in, but also leant in and as she closed her mouth, I pecked her lips. One more sign of the future that I had no idea of for years. All the same, it was comfortable and loving, intimate and caring.
We had finished eating and I gave her the card and present I had brought with me. The card was a simple one that reflected my warped sense of humour. I had no worries about giving it to Lisa as over the year we had seen that we both laughed at the same silly stuff.
“Oh P! It’s beautiful!” she cried as she opened the box.
I took it out and clipped it around her wrist. It was just a simple gold band, the best that I could sensibly afford. That gold band was on her wrist on our wedding day and she was still wearing it to our twenty-fifth-anniversary party.
After a long passionate thank you, we settled again. Lisa wiggled to the side and lay her head in my lap and it was the most natural thing to stroke her hair again.
“How did I know what?”
Lisa looked up at me and asked, “What do you mean?”
“Last night, when you first hugged me, you asked how I knew.”
She smiled before saying, “How do you know, not how did you know?” I was getting more confused.
“Last New Year, ‘our’ New Year, you knew that men were hitting on me and you were there to protect me.” Lisa sat up and straddled me.
“Over Easter, I needed a friend I could truly open up to and trust and you were there.” She stroked my cheek softly.
“At the start of summer, I didn’t know where you lived at home. Ironic, considering I wrote to you every week at uni. You knew I wanted to talk and were at the one place we both hung out when I came looking.” She leant forward and kissed me.
“And then this morning. How do you know, P? How do you know when I need your protection? When I need you to be there for me?”
I was dumbfounded and tried a couple of stuttering questions, followed by some half-thoughts, I ended up shrugging.
Lisa put a hand on the side of my face and one on my heart. “You must know of soul mates?” she asked and I nodded. “What of twin flames?” I shook my head to this.
She was silent for a while, not moving her hands and studying my eyes intensely before she started to speak. “Two halves of the same soul. They are bound together, through countless lives, always searching for the other; even when they do not know the other existed. I think that’s how you know.”
A tear ran down her cheek, which I rubbed away with my thumb, sucking it dry.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Do you remember the night of summer last year, when we were first introduced?” I nodded. “How did you feel the next day?”
“It was like I had started something…”
“But hadn’t finished it?”
“Yes! But I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. It was almost like an unfinished…”
“Sentence?”
I couldn’t do anything but smile. I put my hand over her heart and the other on the side of her face, in a mirror of how she was with me. Gradually our faces got closer and we kissed, lips touching tentatively before our mouths opened a little. Our tongues slipped forward and touched, but that was as far as we went. I opened my eyes and Lisa opened hers at the same time as a smile spread over our faces.
“There was something else.” Lisa nodded for me to continue. “I’ve called you ma'am,” I felt Lisa stiffen a little on my lap as I continued, “a couple of times since I’ve been here and you seem to react to it. Like then I felt you stiffen.”
Lisa looked troubled, she wouldn’t keep eye contact, suddenly looking everywhere but at me.
“I’m sorry, if you’re not comfortable…” again she put three fingers on my lips, though this time to silence me.
“It’s not about being comfortable or uncomfortable, it’s getting the words right. I like my partner to take the lead,” she paused, but now she was looking at me, watching my reaction.
She was not put off by it as she continued, "With the right person, I can let them take the lead and ‘ma'am’, specifically how you were using it, is usually what someone leading might be called, not being led.
“Sorry, P, I can get carried away sometimes and it's only fair you know. Over the summer, did you notice me saying anything odd when we got intimate?”
I thought about it and did not think there was anything too odd. “If I had to say anything, perhaps, I don’t know at times, your language was… formal? It did make me smile how you kept saying please.”
“Yes, that’s a part of it, I might call you Mister or Sir, I might ask you if I can do things, that sort of thing.”
“You don’t have to ask and just call me P,” I responded, a bit confused again.
Lisa smiled and started to clear up the picnic things, but she carried on talking.
“That’s all part of it, the titles and asking permission.”
As Lisa bent over to pick up the rucksack, I swatted her bum, “Ooh, thank you, Mr Hatter, Sir.” She giggled, nervously. “Sort of things like that,” she finished, quickly.
We started to walk back to the car and carried on talking. Lisa did not know why she enjoyed the names or not being in charge, or where it had come from. She did know that it gave her a feeling of satisfaction and it turned her on more if she let go and if she felt she had to suppress it she found it was a turn-off. I was not worried, but I did tell her I had no idea what to do to help.
“Pet names are nice, compliments are too.”
“Oh hell, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Really?” She then leaned a little closer and quietly said, “What about Kitty-Cat or Flower?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
When we got back to the car park the sun was touching the horizon, so we leant against the front of the car and watched as it sank into the sea. Hand in hand with Lisa leaning against me, silence hung over us as the burning orb melted across the ocean. It was the first extended silence between us and it was very comfortable. Being comfortable in silence together was, for me, like ‘me knowing when to be there’ was for Lisa, it was a sign of our connection.