19th May 2018, early morning.

So many. So soft and dark. No lessening in their dense coverage despite the receding hairline from their brother follicles up top.

I loved playing with the soft and curly little hairs that covered my husband’s belly, or the slightly longer and more manly matting that covered his chest. Head on chest, feeling all was well with the world as I savored his recovering breathing and slowing normalizing pulse. The feel of his skin on mine so satisfying, matched only by the way I knew he loved the feel of my long, soft mane covering his chest.

It felt so good to be back together like this. All talk and thoughts of the past pushed aside. A couple enjoying that post-sex bliss. Feeling my husband’s juices slowly seeping out of me as his breathing made me smile, making me recall how hard he’d worked to put them there. How hard he’d worked so we could move on, putting the thoughts of past lovers firmly in the rearview mirror where they belonged.

Just for a moment, my mind went back to Chris. Went back to the hard and difficult feelings and conversations Dave and I had endured these last two weeks. Went back to the quiet moments at work when I missed my now ex-boyfriend. Went back to those surreal moments when his name would come up in conversation or I’d have to talk to him about some work-related matter.

These moments had been hard, just as I knew Dave had his share of similar times. But together we’d talked about them, and while we were far from ‘out of the woods’, we both knew we were on the path to recovery. The worst behind us and good times ahead to encourage and pull us forward, pull us out of the last yards of the tunnel we’d so carelessly entered.

And today was a case in point. Lying here with the man I loved. Skin tingling from tender and energetic love-making, juices wet and sticky on my pussy lips and thighs, reminding me of the three humans we’d made through similar love in the past. Stretching and luxuriating like a truly contented cat, enjoying that satisfied feeling of another hour before we had to finally raise ourselves and start rejoining the world. Getting ready for a day with a different tone and different pleasures.

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19th May 2018, later

“So good to see you. Congratulations. It was such wonderful news.”

I wrapped my arms around her and despite her condition gave her an extra special, extra tight hug. With just a hint of extra care in recognition of the precious cargo she carried within.

“And I quite love you too,” I added with a smile, turning to welcome my firstborn, fresh off the plane from after a long flight from Chicago. My son John, who’d been smart enough to find himself a wonderful woman – Becky. Not so smart as to avoid accidentally knocking her up, but smart enough to turn it all around into the prospect of a Spring-Summer wedding.

What was not to like for me and John’s father? One child happily settled with a great life partner, a wonderful celebration of their love at Church and a quality reception. And then the prospect of a Christmas or New Year addition to the family.

Having welcomed John’s fiancée Becky with the warmest of welcomes, I gave my son a hug as only a mother can. This weekend was going to be a great weekend. John and Becky back for the first time since John had told us of Becky’s pregnancy and their plans to marry. Our twin daughters Abigail and Sarah summoned back from college on pain of death for a proper family get together.

One hundred percent, it was what Dave and I needed after the pain and challenges of the ending of my relationship with Chris and Dave’s relationship with Gemma. The anti-venom to remind us of the best things in life. Six months of gorging on chocolates replaced by the healthy sugar-rush of family life.

That weekend with John, Becky, Abigail, and Sarah in the house was a magical weekend. Without the everyday frictions of family life, the kids got on with each other. Remembering and luxuriating in how much they loved each other, linked by the silky spider’s web of family memories and shared experiences.

Shared meals, evenings out and time just chilling together. Moments when Dave and I just looked on from the sidelines, holding each other and feeling the most unique human happiness of watching them and knowing he and I had created this bubbling, laughing family unit. Four about to become Five.

It was a wonderful weekend in its own right. One of those four or five events that all families have in their memory locker. But in a different way, it was exactly what Dave and I needed to give our reconnection a final boost. After two weeks of daily tears, shouting, talks and more tears. Our recovery process as we talked through and tried to understand what had happened in the last weekend with Chris, and in the weeks and months leading up to that crisis.

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Saturday 26th May 2018

I was well aware of the husbandly eyes watching my every move. And I tried not to look smug and too happy as I felt my husband’s eyes enjoying the smooth exposed skin of my back. As I hooked the fasteners at the back, adjusted the straps and then made an exaggerated showing of adjusting the globes of my boobs to sit comfortably in the cups of my bra. More than aware that every little move was having the desired effect, making my over-worked and newly worshipful husband harder and hungrier.

“I don’t know? What do you think, honey? I think I’ve put on weight these last few weeks. What do you think?”

Three-two-one. Wait for it.

So predictable. At least he was when he was being played by a loving but teasing master. (Or should I say, mistress.)

Hardly was the question of my lips than my beloved husband had bounded over from the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting to wrap his arms around me and start kissing his way up my spine. Each tingling kiss making me shiver as vertebra by vertebrae he worked his way higher. Hands gently teasing and stroking me through the silky white cups as he kissed the backstrap, unable to resist a moment longer as he unhooked the garment I’d so carefully hooked just seconds ago.

He spun me around and quick as a flash I felt both fingers and lips enjoying the flesh he’d just exposed. Making me moan and sigh, closing my eyes as I enjoyed the wonderful touch of the man who loved me so much. Of the man I loved so much.

He picked me up in his arms and carried me to our marital bed, as we spent the next few minutes exploring each other’s bodies with an excitement and enthusiasm that we had no damn right to feel. Not after more than twenty years together. But the truth we both knew and had often discussed was that the highs and lows of the last few months had given us a new zest and desire for each other. It was as if our personal fairy godmother had waved her wand and sprinkled some pixie dust, magically transported us back more than twenty years ago.

In fact, this was actually better than twenty years ago. Because twenty years ago, I’d been recovering from a broken heart and I’d been slow and suspicious as I only gradually opened up to the wonderful man who was to become my husband. But now there were no such brakes or reservations to apply. I could throw myself body and soul into the wonderful love-making we were about to enjoy. And which we’d enjoyed so many times these last few weeks.

Of course, there had been plenty of difficult times too. What had happened on that painful Friday night with Chris had cut too deep not too leave scars and hurt. But for the most part, Dave and I managed to look on the positive side. As Milton would have put it, Paradise Lost acted as an enabler for Paradise Gained.

And tonight was a perfect example. Sometimes the pain was still there, but tonight Dave and I were determined to enjoy our newly dewed-eyes and besotted love for each other. And that’s exactly how I felt as my beloved husband finally lost his self-control, gave up on stimulating me with his lips, teeth, and fingers and slipped himself deep into my body.

I never tired of the look I saw on his face as he sank into me until he could go no further and his hips bumped against mine, his groin hard against me as he sought purchase and leverage even to go just a fraction further in. Finally giving up and starting the slow and fulfilling in and out of a man making love to his woman. Making love to her and fucking her in equal measure.

Each stroke deep, each pullback an expression both of two love birds and at the same time a statement of the male possessing his female. Cock-blocking any other male who might be in the neighborhood, making sure that it would only be his selfish-genes, his DNA that found the egg of the welcoming and available female.

As Dave slid himself in and out of me I was truly in heaven. Smiling inwardly to myself (and no doubt outwardly) at my good fortune to have found and kept such a wonderful friend and lover. Smiling as I knew in my heart that his love and performance were driven to new levels by what had happened and, even now, by what he perceived as the competition that was still there from Chris.

Chris may have been a ghost, thousands of miles away in California. But to my husband, who thought he’d lost me to Chris, however physically remote he was, in Dave’s mind he was still a ‘clear and present danger.’

You might think I’m a callous and selfish bitch thinking this as we made love, but I’m only sharing what Dave and I had talked about many times over the last few weeks. As the weeks had passed, we’d found it possible, necessary and beneficial to talk about everything that had happened.

And while this was true, as Dave picked up speed and started pounding me with a raw and animalistic passion, all thoughts of the past were swept away. All that was present in that magical moment was me and Dave, united in our love and enjoying a life and love which we’d not even known when we were carefree youngsters. Dave’s pace and face telling me that he couldn’t hold out much longer, that he’d soon be making that last lunge and pulling me tight to him.

Holding me tight in love and through his need to totally possess me. To send his seed deep, to plug it in me, no doubt imagining it doing its work and making our child number four for our family. An imagined wish only negated by the historic reality of a vasectomy three years after we welcomed Abigail and Sarah into the world.

Having occupied me with his seed and pleasuring me with a wonderful climax as a happy by-product, my gasping husband then sought to crush me to death as he collapsed on top of me. Not the worst way to die. I kissed him tenderly and managed to shift his weight just enough to stop the crush but still enjoy his weight on top of me.

I grinned up at my wonderful man, regaining my own breath a few seconds before him as he’d been doing more of the work. “Wow! Someone was hungry and horny tonight. Are there any more like you back at home?”

He smiled back, part shy and part proud. “Don’t even think about it, Jill Foster. Your days of playing the field are well and truly behind you. You’ve had your fun, sown your wild oats, from here on in there’s only one cock going inside that pussy of yours, and it belongs to the man who put a ring on your finger. Who made a semi-honest and semi-decent woman of you.”

I loved the newly confident and assertive Dave, and I’m sure I must have been grinning like a Cheshire cat. But I tried to feign disappointment and hurt obedience. “Okay, honey. If you say so, I’ll try my best to be a good girl and keep my legs closed for everyone except the knight of this particular castle.”

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We snuggled for the next few minutes, more than happy to just hold each other without either of us feeling any need to speak.

We’d done enough talking these last few weeks to outdo the verbiage in a one-man Shakespeare in an hour-long tribute act.

I might joke about it, but it was talking we needed to do. Thinking we needed to do. We talked about everything that had happened in our lives from the first days we’d considered swinging. All the way through Daryl, through the time with Rocco and the early days with Chris. Through the trip to England and through how we got things so badly wrong on that ‘farewell night.’

We talked about both me and Chris and also Dave and Gemma. We also talked about Dave and Chris and me, in the sense of being honest about the enjoyment that Dave got out of both the physical and emotional side of my relationship with my handsome and well-hung boss.

We promised each other to be totally honest, even if sharing some things would most likely be painful. For me, this meant facing up to the question of why, even just for a few minutes, I’d agreed to leave Dave and set-up home with Chris on the other side of the country. Even if I’d only agreed for a few minutes before coming to my senses, I had to face up to the truth that I had agreed. What did this say about me? What did this say about my feelings for Dave and about my marriage and relationship with Dave?

These were painful questions to confront. And as bit-by-bit I stumbled slowly towards answers and understanding, both Dave and I realized there was no simple, silver bullet answer to these questions. Instead, we both came to realize that my willingness to agree to leave was driven by a real mix of factors. Partly mid-life crisis, not feeling ready to suddenly become a grandmother. Partly the weird mix of knowing my husband approved of the relationship and got off on it, mixed in with my own love for a handsome and smart man who was physically able to do things for me that my husband couldn’t.

Partly the deceitful fly’s egg of an idea that Chris laid in my brain that Dave would be okay with Chris and my plans as Dave and Gemma would then live happily ever after. In my defense, it was Chis who laid this egg, but to my own shame, I was all too eager to hatch and nourish the idea. Until it was an idea that I wanted to make true.

If this was the painful truth that shamed and embarrassed me every time I thought about it, Dave’s twin shaming truth was how excited and obsessed he’d become at the thought of me romping in bed with Chris. Strangely excited at the thought of his wife with a younger, more handsome and better-endowed man than him. A man just as smart as him, a quality he prized highly, but at the same time, better endowed in all key physical ways. Looks, youth, muscles, and manhood.

Dave hated to think about this, just as I hated to think of my guilty secret, and he also hated to think about how he’d enjoyed the idea so much that he also loved the idea of me being in love with Chris. Loved the idea, so long as there was the safety net of my promise that I’d always love him more and never leave him to be with Chris.

I wouldn’t want you to get the idea that Dave and I were consumed by these thoughts every moment of every day. But nor would I want you to think that our recovery and rebuilding of a happy and fulfilling marriage was a painless and easy process. The truth was somewhere in the middle.

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“You do realize that at some point you’re going to have to get out of bed and put some clothes on, don’t you?”

My beloved husband could be so tart and sarcastic when he wanted. But always said in jest, that was one of the reasons I loved him.

“Anyway, what kind of a sad husband wants to kick his sexy wife out of bed so he can get on with doing his expenses?”

“The kind of husband who’s owed ten thousand dollars in travel expenses and who’s thinking of his beloved daughters’ upcoming college fees.”

That deserved the stuck-out tongue that he received, but I got his point. But I wasn’t giving up without a fight, and I gave him an extra sexy butt wiggle as I headed to the shower. If he preferred his damned expenses to more time in bed with me or keeping me company for drinks and BBQ next door, then I was going to make him suffer.

He was still lounging naked in bed as I paraded around naked, toweling my hair and letting his eyes feast on the breasts he loved so much. Making sure each drying stroke jiggled my assets up and down to taunt my wrongly busy husband one more time.

I reached for the clothes I’d been wearing before my husband so selfishly ravished me, only to hear his correction. “You know they’re all in the pool already? Which bikini are you going to wear? The gold one?”

Dave had tried his best to sound calm and nonchalant, but he’s never been that good an actor and from the nervous, slightly strangled tone of his voice I knew he was getting more than a little turned on by the thought of me parading around in a bikini with Byron and his two housemates.

At one level it was harmless enough. Although I knew Byron had always had a thing for me, he was spoken for and from what I’d seen of Riley she’d have him on a short leash. And with Riley and Byron there, his two housemates were unlikely to try on anything too outlandish.

No, all things considered, despite Dave’s disguised excitement, the evening seemed to me like a thousand other evenings before. A few drinks, some good food and at most some gentle flirting that was pretty much standard stuff at any kind of pool party. Something Dave and I had enjoyed and experienced many, many times before around our neighborhood.

But nonetheless, just three weeks into our rehabilitation, Dave was pushing just a little too much for me to wear my sexiest bikini. The tiny gold one which was barely more than three triangles of fabric that did just enough to avoid me getting arrested or slapped in the face by another wife or girlfriend. A bikini I’d bought for our recent trip to England and which was totally different from all the other quite ‘mumsy’ bikinis that filled my swimwear draw.

I decided to gently confront Dave, calling him out with a raised and arched eyebrow which asked him a question. He got the message, blushing and coloring up. “What? All I did was ask you which bikini you were going to wear. It’s not a crime, is it?”

Something in his guilty response made me suddenly get serious. A loud voice in my head shouting out ‘hell, it’s only three weeks since we nearly lost it all, and he’s asking me this?’

Dave must have seen the change in my expression, quelling his embarrassment and explaining himself. “Honey, it’s only a bit of fun. The same thing we’ve done many times before. Just a harmless bit of fun.”

I pulled a face, thinking about his words. Looking directly into his nervous and still guilt-ridden face as I thought. In some ways, he was totally right. I’d known for years he enjoyed watching other guys flirting with me at parties, and we’d many times made it into a harmless game that made three people happy.

But in other ways what had happened over the last six months had changed all that. Whenever there was even the smallest bit of flirting and playing, there’d be an unspoken question in both my and Dave’s mind about whether it would go further. Lead from harmless fun to something more. From harmless fun into bed, and from bed to who knows where.

Unconsciously I found myself sighing deeply. Still looking at Dave and his puppy dog eyes. Still wondering whether or not to cancel the evening and stay home, sending him the clearest signal that I was not up for even the tiniest most harmless version of the flirting game. The other part of me wondering if I was over-reacting. Whether I’d become too serious and not trusting my ability to set boundaries and just have a little bit of harmless fun.

I decided to be totally open, sharing my conundrum and indecision with my beloved husband. “Honey, you do remember what happened just three weeks ago, right?” Dave blushed again. “Do you really think it’s such a bright idea for me to put that tiny gold bikini on and spend the evening with Byron and his friends? Part of me thinks it’s fine, but part of me is worried after everything that we’ve been through recently.”

Dave’s blushes and nerves seemed to disappear as he held his arms out and hugged me as I snuggled next to him. His smile and confidence reassured me.

“Honey, I know what you mean. I get it. I really do. But honestly, this is nothing more than a harmless bit of fun.” He kissed me, and as if to emphasize the message continued. “Honey, I don’t want you to sleep with the guys. I just want you to have a bit of fun. I know you sometimes get a bit down. Missing Chris and the excitement he brought into our lives. I just thought you might enjoy a bit of harmless flirting. Be reminded of how hot other guys think you are.” He paused before kissing me softly once more. “And then coming home to be mine at the end of the evening, so that I can fuck my wife like she deserves. Let the other guys do all the hard work, then steal the prize from right out under their noses.”

Of course, I still had my doubts, but Dave’s quiet but persuasive words had had the desired effect that he’d intended. I did still have doubts, but I was feeling calmer and more at ease with going next door for the evening. Even in that excuse for a bikini that Dave had suggested I wear.

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Dave knew better than to lustfully stare at me as I dressed. His only helpful suggestion being to choose a crocheted white beach cover-up for me to wear as I left the house, which went some way to sparing my blushes. His other suggestion being less than helpful, the matching five-inch heels he pulled out of my shoe closet as I tried to arrange my boobs beneath the inadequate amount of stretchy gold fabric.

Dave insisted on giving me a farewell kiss, and as I kissed him back I couldn’t resist. “I hope you’re happy now. What a way for a mother in her forties to be dressed up and sent like a lamb to the slaughter.”

But despite my doubts, I was beginning to warm to his game, and I pushed my shoulders back and pushed out my boobs and butt as I gave him one final kiss and turned and teetered down the stairs and out of our house towards our neighbors’ yard.

At least I was warming to our little game until I saw the lustful and wolfish way Byron’s two housemates, Freddy and Josh, visually devoured every inch of my body. And Byron, despite the presence of Riley by his side wasn’t far behind them.

It took me three stiff drinks and about half-an-hour before I was relaxed and chilled enough to accept their offer and remove that crocheted cover-up and join them all in the pool. By then the drink had done its work and although I blushed, I was also aware that I was enjoying the lustful stares of the three young black guys.

But strangely it was Riley who spoke first, being the first to comment. “Wow, sister. Where have you been keeping those puppies? I guess that’s some advert for motherhood. If I got me a pair like that, hell maybe it would be worth the pain of child-birth.”

Everyone burst into raucous laughter, myself included, and strangely her comment helped me relax. If it had been one of the guys, I’d have felt totally different and very self-conscious. But it was a fellow ‘sister’ commenting, it also seemed to come from sisterly affection rather than male lust.

As I gingerly stepped down the poolside ladder into the soothing waters, as Riley and Byron seemed deep in conversation, it was only natural that I ended up standing between Freddy and Josh, Byron’s housemates.

Despite the two of them having been our neighbors for a little over a year now, apart from the odd hello, I hardly knew either of them. Like Byron, they were both black, teachers and in their early thirties. They were both handsome enough in their different ways, Freddy being a little shorter with a very noticeable set of shoulder-length dreadlocks, Josh being maybe a little taller and a little wider, his head shaved bare as the total opposite of his friend’s dreads, his body decorated by various tribal tattoos.

Despite the large amount of flesh and cleavage my husband’s choice of bikini had put on show, the young teachers showed remarkable restraint and self-control. By and large, they kept their eyes on my face, although once or twice when they thought I wasn’t looking, I caught them admiring my womanly curves. Not such a terrible crime. Especially as they were both quite easy on the eye themselves.

And aside from the three of us enjoying our discrete and surreptitious mutual admiration, it was really nice to get to know them both a little better. Both of them taught in local schools and were friends from college. When Byron had wanted to move away from the relationship going bad in LA, Freddy had been the one to alert him to the job that was vacant in the High School where he taught.

Josh taught in a different school, all three of them being athletics coaches of one flavor or other. Both of them seemed really nice guys, and it was nice hearing their life stories and answering their questions as they returned the compliment. The fact that being athletics coaches they were blessed with great bodies didn’t do any harm in making an old woman enjoy her pleasant Spring evening.

After a while Byron shouted that the match they wanted to watch was just starting, doing his best to appear unselfish as he volunteered that he and his buddies would cook the food while they watched the start of the match.

This wasn’t so bad either, as I got to admire three hunky and glistening black bodies sauntering from the pool to the house, giving me a very pleasant tingling feeling that I’d have to rely on my poor husband to put out later. And when they were gone indoors, Riley swam over to me and we were deep in conversation.

Even on that first evening when I met her, she seemed a very down-to-earth and easy to talk to person. With that openness and quiet confidence that puts others at ease. We were soon chatting away like we’d known each other for years. Inevitably, like most females of the species, I was soon asking Riley how it was going with Byron. And what she told me in her calm and relaxed manner really surprised me.

“Well, it’s funny you should ask. Because it’s all very amicable, but we’ve just agreed to split up.”

Seeing my embarrassed and shocked look, Riley immediately put a hand on my arm and reassured me. “Oh no, it’s nothing like that. We’re both cool and okay about it. It’s just that though we really like each other, and the sex is great, we’re just looking for different things in life. Byron’s actually at a stage where he’s looking for someone to settle down with. A girl next door type. And I’m not looking for that kind of thing, and in some ways, I’m a little more adventurous than he is…”

My startled expression must have been pretty obvious, and Riley just smiled mischievously, seeming to enjoy my discomfort a little. “There were a couple of things which were deal breakers for him. Things I couldn’t give him.” That smile ratcheted a little wider as she reeled me in, enjoying every little moment.

“He wanted to be exclusive, which I wasn’t ready for. And I think his male pride found it a bit hard to accept that I go both ways, if you know what I mean.”

My jaw must have hit the floor at this last revelation, and just as I was picking it up the sweet-looking Riley hit me with a final blow. “So, anyway, we just agreed to stay good friends and be fuck buddies when the mood takes us.”

Grinning broadly she reached out and lightly touched my elbow. “Sorry, Jill, did I shock you? But from what Byron told me, I thought you of all people wouldn’t be shocked. After all, you and your husband aren’t exactly strangers to a bit of fun, to a bit of strange…”

I must have blushed deepest red at Riley’s last comment. What the hell had Byron told her about me and Dave? I didn’t take kindly to finding out that Dave and my love life was the subject of pillow talk between our friends and neighbors, although with hindsight maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

“Sorry, Jill, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” this time sounding genuinely sorry. “I thought it was hardly a secret. But I’m sorry if I misspoke.”

Despite still having a flushed scarlet face, now I felt on the back foot. “No, it’s okay, Riley. I shouldn’t be surprised I guess. It’s just that sometimes hearing it said out loud feels a bit strange, a bit embarrassing.”

The grinning, naughty Riley was back. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Jill. I think it’s great that you and Dave are still having fun. Still not frightened to experiment at your time of life. I’d be glad if I was still having fun like that when I’ve been married so long. Lucky to have a man who loved me enough to let me have my fun.”

I was back to being lost for words, and as I struggled to find something to say to hide my discomfort Riley pulled close to me and started speaking in a low, conspiratorial whisper. “And anyway, from what Byron tells me, maybe my loss could be your gain. Now we’ve called it a day, he’s a free man, and I have to tell you that man of mine has seriously got the hots for you. And if you’re interested, I can tell you you’re in for a treat. He’s dynamite between the sheets. I certainly had no complaints in that department. He was my first black boyfriend, and I have to say my next man is going to really struggle to measure up, if you know what I mean.”

I felt like all the blood from my whole body had flooded into my face, I was blushing so intently, which only served to encourage this little trouble-maker. “Come on, Jill. From what the guys tell me, I know you love your husband, but you have to admit you’ve become a bit of a size queen…”

I was about to explode in one way or another when she totally disarmed me with a huge hug and a smile that belonged on someone a lot younger. “Oh come on, Jill. I’m only winding you up. All girls together, right? There’s nothing to be ashamed of in all of this. What’s wrong with being a bit greedy. Isn’t that what equality’s all about. A loving husband and a loving lover to give you a bit of spice in life. Men have been having it both ways forever, and know it’s our turn.”

Put like that she was very persuasive, and as the conversation moved on a portion of my brain was mulling over all the things Riley had told me.

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Dave was so engrossed in his expenses that when I finally returned home just before midnight he didn’t join me in bed. And Sunday morning and afternoon were so hectic with various family and work tasks and jobs that we didn’t really have a chance to discuss the fifty-four different bombshells sweet little Riley had laid on me Saturday night.

Sunday evening also gave us no easy chance to talk as Charlotte and Callan had invited themselves round for dinner. Typical them. They said they had some news that they wanted us to hear from them before we heard it from anyone else.

Being old romantics, both Dave and I thought they might be about to tell us that they were getting back together permanently. That their reconciliation after Charlotte had her head turned by a younger Latino guy at the swingers club had been successful. But sorry to say, what they told us was the total opposite – that after trying to make it work and rekindle the magic, they’d come to the conclusion that although they still wanted to be good friends, they couldn’t undo the damage and thought they’d better split for good.

It seemed to be a weekend for amicable break-ups because they both seemed relaxed and happy about the conclusion they’d come to. There didn’t seem to be any angst or regret for either of them. Both of them commenting that it might have been different if they’d had children, but that they were glad there were no kids who might get hurt. Dave and I were in the strange position that we both seemed more upset about their split than they were themselves.

The conversation and the drinking went on quite some time that evening. It was one in the morning by the time they both left and Dave and I were happy to hit the sack. Glad that the next day was the Memorial Day holiday.

At least it was for me, but poor Dave had to leave in the early afternoon to fly to California for a client meeting. Trying to placate an angry client who’d experienced all kinds of problems on a recent project. I knew from his stressed mood that he wasn’t looking forward to the meeting itself, and the fact it killed his holiday just added insult to injury.

We managed to enjoy a quality morning together before I had to drive him to the airport, both of us feeling short-changed as I kissed him goodbye and saw him disappear towards the departure gate. Knowing I’d not see him back for a couple of days at least.