We finished out that weekend with a little bit of tension. Gina still didn't understand that my discomfort in the house was not out of guilt. It was because I couldn't be with just Gina in the house. Lynn kept popping up in my head. We had another small argument about it, but in the end she said she would try hard to just trust me on this, even though it sucked.
I sought out a lawyer to talk privately about divorce. Explaining the situation (while omitting any mention of Gina), I asked about my options. He explained that, while abandonment is grounds for divorce, it's hard to demonstrate that such is the case when I had made no effort to contact Lynn. That she had asked me not to call her made little difference at this point. So we discussed all my options and next steps, the first of which was to contact Lynn. I wasn't ready to do that yet, so I pocketed the information for a few weeks.
The next weekend Gina and I spent from Friday afternoon until Monday morning in a posh hotel an hour away. Gina worked hard that week to be caught up in her classes so that nothing else would be on our plates. We enjoyed the heated pool on Friday night and then got a couples massage in our room. The masseuses slipped out of the room and Gina was on me in seconds. We made love urgently, happily. There's something exciting about hotel sex- the new environment, the knowledge that people are in rooms all around you, the knowledge that you won't need to clean the room later...
After I came, Gina was finishing up on top of me, smiling and sweating from exertion. As I watched her with appreciation and love, I was pleased to discover that Lynn was out of my head. That room, that hotel, it belonged to me and Gina. There were no memories in the way. I didn't tell Gina at first, wanting to see how the weekend would go, but I looked around the room and started planning how to "make memories" on all the furniture in our luxurious room. I really had gone all out with this room- partly out of guilt for making us leave the house and partly out of a sense of this being like a small honeymoon for us.
After a quickie in the shower Saturday morning (which was not easy to do with a condom), we dressed and went to the insanely large breakfast buffet. Returning to our room, we pulled up a new movie on the hotel's TV service- a movie that had just left theaters- and watched it while we snuggled in bed. Halfway through the movie, Gina got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She came out mumbling profanities and digging through her suitcase.
When she returned to the bed, she curled under my arm and finished out the movie. When it was done, I asked, "Is everything OK?"
"No," she said glumly. "I just started my period."
"Awww. Well, should we schedule another massage, then? Would that feel good?"
"Gareth! You're missing the point. Our sexy hotel trip is ruined."
I squeezed her and masked the small measure of disappointment I was feeling. "No it's not. You're still sexy and we're still in a hotel, right? This trip wasn't about having sex- it's about us having time together. I'm not disappointed. Well, not
very
disappointed. There's still plenty we could do together."
"Gareth, you doofus. I'm not worried about
you
being disappointed. You're Mr. Nice Guy.
I'm
disappointed. You're not the only one who likes to have sex!
I
wanted to have sex this weekend. I wanted you to fuck me raw before Monday. And now I just feel crampy and yucky and like we're wasting our time."
I was pretty hurt by that last statement, and my face showed it, but Gina corrected herself.
"I'm sorry. You know what I mean," (I didn't). "You can't take anything too seriously if I say it at the beginning of my period. I'm just grumpy."
We found ways to enjoy our time at the hotel, nonetheless. There was a band at the bar that night- a pretty decent one playing some 70's classics. Gina kept teasing me about it being the music of my generation. She was off by about two decades.
We went out on dates, took a walk when the weather was nice, used the gym and the ping-pong room, and watched a lot of movies. She gave me a blow job each night until we left, and I offered to do whatever she wanted to help her get off, but she said she just felt "yucky" and didn't want anything going on down there.
Before we left, we talked about the upcoming weeks. We decided to take a break the next weekend, letting us both get caught up and even a little ahead on our classes and work responsibilities before leaving on our Spring Break trip the next weekend. Gina also surprised me by saying that she had signed me up to run in the half marathon, since I would be there with her anyway. She had also months earlier paid for a hotel room for that weekend, so that was covered. I told her there was no way I could run the whole race, but she convinced me that, since I was already up to 8 miles jogging, I could at least get to 10 before the race, then I could walk the last 3 miles. It made sense, but sounded intimidating. She was just so excited about it, though, that I couldn't say no.
On Monday morning, before check out, Gina pulled out a condom and said, "I think we can get away with one time before we go- grab some towels, just in case. I picked up all the clean-looking towels I could find and put them under us on the bed. I climbed on top of her and we gently made love- the comfortable, no rush kind. Gina didn't cum and told me she usually didn't during that time of the month- some kind of mental hang-up she said. But as I was nearing my climax, she grabbed my head and put her mouth by my ear.
"Next time we do this," she whispered, "I'll be in a bikini. We'll be in our hotel room at the beach, and you can just pull my little bikini strap to the side any time you want and fuck...my...pussy. All...week...long..." I didn't usually go for dirty talk during sex, but the mental image of Gina below me, pulling her bikini bottom to the side to give me unlimited access to her treasures...
I pushed into her and clenched my eyes shut, picturing her breasts in a bikini, bouncing as I fucked her. I pictured her perfect ass shaking as I took her from behind on a hotel balcony overlooking the beach. I felt her squeezing her walls around me to increase my pleasure and I felt a wave of love and thankfulness for this beautiful woman. As I pulled out, I said, "
Please
let me do something for you."
"Nah, not today. But maybe I'll come by your office this week on a slow day to collect on that offer."
My eyes went wide with surprise and fear. Gina laughed, "You should see your face. Oh, my goodness." And with that she went to the walk-in shower with me eventually following.
*******
The next two weeks crawled by. I could feel it. Gina felt it. All my students felt it. Everyone was looking forward to Spring Break, and all the days in between felt tedious. Gina and I jogged together, and she tried to push me up to 9 miles. I ended up walking the last half mile while she ran an extra couple blocks to finish her routine. By the time Spring Break rolled around, I was up to 9 miles, though I doubt I could have done it if I hadn't been determined to keep pace with Gina.
I used the weekend away from Gina to prepare a seminar for the conference. The committee had been so glad when I agreed to do it (authors with multiple published works look good on a program) that they gave me carte blanche on my topic. I chose something I was comfortable doing with little preparation and that wouldn't distract me during the conference. Having that preparation to focus on kept me distracted during the weekend, and I even managed to finish the first draft of my book that week, sending it off to my publisher a few weeks ahead of schedule.
Near the end of the day on the Monday before Spring Break, Gwen, my Department Head, knocked on my office door. When I called her in, she handed me a small packet of papers. I asked what they were and she explained that they were a reminder of the University's policies on faculty-student interactions. My stomach sank and my palms started to sweat.
"Is there...a reason...you're giving me this?"
Seeing my frightened expression, Gwen started laughing and put her hand on my shoulder. "Oh, dear
Lord
Gareth, I'm sorry! I forget that you are out of the loop on most things. Our beloved absent-minded author in residence..."
I started to think I was going to be OK.
"Some sexually repressed professor in the physics department got involved with a freshman last semester...pictures got out online...national media picked it up for a day or two...you really hadn't heard?"
"Oh, wow. Was he married?"
"
He
was 18.
She
wasn't married, and if
he