As I sunk in to my kitchen chair with a second glass of wine to wait I couldn't stop thinking about how I had got to this point. I was not often nervous but I found my hands were shaking so much that I was worried about spilling the wine before I got it to my lips to take a much needed gulp.
It started, like so many things in the 21st century, with an email. When I sat down at my desk that sunny, June day I had no idea that my love life was going to be resurrected in such a delicious, if unexpected way. Being in my mid 40's, childless and single meant my life tended to be a routine of work, home and work again. If I was lucky a dinner with friends or family would break the monotony every so often. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, I was celibate through choice not just circumstance. I could have done online dating if I was really bothered about being single. I'd resorted to that a few years previously but I'd become disillusioned with trying to figure out who was real and who wasn't. Now it was even more of a lottery as everyone else had discovered the online world and everyone was using the dating sites.
Anyway back to the email. The name of an ex-boyfriend who I hadn't seen or heard from for at least 25 years flashed up on the screen. Pete! The last time we'd spoken, I had been a bubbly twenty something to his more experienced thirty and he'd kissed me goodbye and flown off to work in the US with a promise to come back to me. I'm not sure whether he'd broken my heart when he didn't return but he'd definitely bruised it quite badly.
I scanned the email and the jokey style of his apology about taking so long to get back to me made me smile immediately. The strength of his personality flowed through the words and conjured up warm images of his charming smile. It would have been impolite not to reply so I'd sent back a jokey, slightly flirty response.
The following days flew by in a haze of pings as ever warmer, moving towards steaming hot, emails sped across the internet. It was a natural progression to our frantic flirting to arrange to meet; maybe even a foregone conclusion from that first ping in my inbox. That was why I was here, sat in my kitchen chair, gulping wine with shaking hands and waiting for the sound of the doorbell to announce the arrival of a man I hadn't seen for 25 years.
I was so nervous. All women have body issues but meeting up again with someone who had last seen you as a toned, youthful twenty year old was bound to bring you face to face (or more honestly line-free to wrinkle) with the aging process in all its variations. I was carrying my years well (I thought and most days when I looked in the mirror I could manage to believe the mirror agreed with me) but I was a lot curvier than I had been at twenty and though that had given me an impressive thirty-eight DD bust it had also given me a softly padded tummy to match. I had of course shared recent pictures with him over the weeks and he'd been really complimentary so I hoped he was going to be equally as happy when he saw me in the flesh. I had certainly been impressed by his picture, he was equally as handsome as I remembered; even more so somehow as the years had added depth and experience to his features, distinguished grey streaks to his thick, brown hair and kindness to his deep blue eyes. One of Mother Nature's biggest jokes was in allowing men to age so much better than women.
I knew we were going to sleep together when we met. We had to really; the memories we'd stirred up with our emailing were so strong that anything other than physical confirmation of them would be a betrayal to who we once were to each other. I just didn't know how I was going to get from the nervous, shaking woman I was at that moment to the seductive woman I knew he remembered and, I believed, once loved so long ago.
My pondering was interrupted by the mobile beeping out a text message.
'I'm 10 minutes away xx.'
I swallowed nervously and went upstairs to check that my hair and makeup were still intact. As I brushed my blonde hair, I saw the glare of car lights through the bedroom windows, cutting through the darkness and throwing pools of light on the bed. One of the many joys of living in the countryside was the complete darkness uninterrupted by street lights or neighbours' houses so any car lights coming down the drive were immediately visible. That must be him; it couldn't really be anyway else.
The moon threw down a hazy light and I could see the outline of a car pulling around to the front of the cottage and stopping just in front of the window where I was standing. As the bedroom windows were the old sash type that went from floor to ceiling it afforded me a complete view of the garden surrounding the old house. A figure got out from the car and stood looking up. He wouldn't be able to see me as the bedroom was dark so I felt quite secure in just standing there tapping my fingers on my phone while watching him. I had the maddest impulse to let him see me watching him and before I'd really thought it through, I put my phone down and switched on the lamp by the window. The soft light illuminated the room and revealed me standing there. I could still see him standing in a pool of the reflected lamplight gazing up at me as I gazed down on him. We were both watching each other now.
The urge to shock him a little became overwhelming and my hand moved up to the buttons of my blue silk shirt and I began to slowly undo them. I looked down and watched the full, creamy mounds of my breasts reveal themselves as I pulled the material apart. My breasts strained against the revealing black lace camisole I was wearing. I could feel the hot flush of arousal spilling across my chest, causing my nipples to flare hard and insistent against the lace and send out tingling messages of need. The first gush of moist desire wet my matching black lace panties and a small moan escaped my slightly parted lips. As I flicked a tongue across my red lips and looked at him I could see his hands clench and a smile pass across his handsome face.
My hands moved down to my jeans zip and I wriggled the tight material over my full hips and down past my soft thighs. I bent slightly to better ease my jeans down and was fully aware that it would have given him an even better view of my large breasts as they struggled to escape the confines of my camisole.
My phone beeped and a message flashed on to the screen:
'Dammit, let me in. I have to have you now!'
I picked up the phone and quickly typed:
