It wasn't a conscience decision to behave myself that had led to my newfound fidelity. It was more along the lines of my new pair of glasses. I was simply getting older and no longer having an interest in women was simply something to adjust to, like remembering where my glasses were before setting out to drive at night.
It wasn't a difficult adjustment. Adultery is stressful. Over the years since my last indiscretion I had come to appreciate no longer having to hide my cellphone from my wife, protect my email passwords or make up stories to explain coming home late at night or disappearing for long afternoons away from the office. Besides, sex no longer was what it once had been. The last woman I had laid with was probably the most attractive of my long line of lovers. She was, from the moment I met her, everything I thought I could lust after in a single woman. She was tall, thin in the waist with large breasts and broad hips. She filled out a pair of jeans as if they had been made for her and stretched T-shirts to their very limit demonstrating the designers clearly had not intended their shirt to cover a chest so bountiful. It was after I fucked her late one afternoon, having exhausted myself and bored her that I realized as beautiful as she was there was little to no satisfaction to be found from screwing a corpse. No, she wasn't a corpse; she just fucked like one, lying there expecting to be pleased. She arranged a second go-round but I allowed it to pass, explaining I had just gotten busy and couldn't make it.
For a time, I felt my wife understood and appreciated it. She seemed vaguely more loving but with time that too passed and we returned to being little more than roommates waiting for the children to leave the house so we could pass away knowing they could take care of themselves. Yes, that was pretty much all I saw was left to life having passed the halfway point between 40 and fifty.
It was this new man, a more mature man that sat at my favorite bar one Thursday afternoon waiting for my friends and wife to join me. I had been passing time talking to the bartender. She was an older woman and although pleasant was not in the least bit interesting. When the lithe young blonde settled into the barstool beside me I smiled at her. I wasn't coming on to her, I just was amused at how young 21 years old had become.
When my friend behind the bar asked her for ID and approved her to place an order she asked what they had for wine. My favorite bar is more of a sports bar than anything else although it pretends to be more, hosting live bands and occasionally impressive dinner specials. I typically drank beer but was familiar enough to suggest a red blend I knew was mild, fruity, and wouldn't offend someone who was just learning to appreciate wine.
"That's good." She said, thanking me when she tasted her drink. "Josie." She said.
"Like the pussy cats."
"Yeah, I suppose. I get that from older people." She said. She didn't mean to offend and I didn't take offense.
"David." I said, introducing myself thinking little of it and not expecting a conversation.
"I know." She said. I'm meeting my parents.
It all clicked. She was my friends' older daughter. I had met her once or twice but not frequently. She was away at school and mildly estranged having married at nineteen. Last I heard she was at least finishing school so I brought it up and she filled me in. She was graduating, divorcing, and still fighting with her mother and father.
When my friends arrived they indeed got into a minor spat and the young girl darted from the bar. I ended up picking up her wine when my bartender friend complained. She appreciated the gesture but warned me. "Be careful, David." She said.
The truth is I never would have thought about the girl again. Not sexually, not even in passing unless maybe Marty and Sally brought her up, if I hadn't volunteered to feed Marty's hellish dog. No one liked to look in on the mutt. He was awful. They were going to Vegas for two nights to see Bob Seeger and I said I would stop by and feed the animal. Marty gave me the code to the alarm and the code to the garage but said I could probably just slip in and out the side gate.
Again, it was happenstance. Had I gone through the house she would have heard the chirp of the alarm but I didn't. I parked in front of their house and in hindsight slipped silently into the yard stealthily sneaking up on the naked perfection of the young blonde splayed out on a rubber float in the pool.
"You scared me," she said without moving. The water pushed the raft in a lazy circle and she was facing away from me. I leered at her exquisite legs.
"Sorry. I didn't know you were here. I am supposed to feed the dog."
"I'm not allowed to be here. I can't even get inside. I am just here to piss him off."
"I'm sorry." I said again. I wasn't sure what for. "I can go. Can you feed Bruno?"
"I already did." She called out. She had turned more. I could have stared longingly at her small round perfect breasts but with a turn of her head she could catch me so instead I petted the dog.
"Do you have the code? There's beer inside, I'm sure." She said.
"No. I'm okay." I muttered. I needed to get out of there. I was suddenly in the middle of domestic turmoil and didn't want to be. My loyalty had to lay with my friend. I would text him that she was there when I showed up in case it ever came up.
"Will you get one for me?" she asked. I looked up at her instinctively. She was gazing back at me. She looked like one of those hippie/hipster young instagram models that replaced the perfectly bronzed fake tits they used to feature every month.
"Yeah. Sure." I said. Perhaps I wasn't as dead as I thought.
I had to wander back through the front of the house and use the garage code and alarm code to get in but then exited the house through the back door greeting her with two beers in hand. She had gotten off her float and now was submerged to her neck in the water. I was thankful. I handed her a beer and took a long swallow of the one I had gotten from myself.
"Are you going to hang out?" she asked. I wondered if she realized just how inviting she made the proposition or if that was just how inviting everything she said seemed.
"Yeah, okay." I muttered because what else was I going to say.