It started so very, very ordinarily. A second date, a promising, breathless end to the first date and warm seductive conversations on the phone the next day so I was convinced that tonight would be the night and that an old friend would become a new lover. We had met years ago, both of us married, no real spark, just a warm friendship with no ulterior motives. Both our marriages had broken up, mine first, hers a few years later. Both ended fairly acrimoniously and painfully. We had drifted apart, on our own separate trajectories, I had played the field, a string of short term and long term lovers lay behind me, she had gone into seclusion and seen no one, drifting in a lonely life of bitterness and anger.
We met by chance one day while she was still angry and bitter, we exchanged cell numbers and parted, not enemies, but definitely not bosom buddies. The silence between us stretched for months, possibly even a year before I ran into a situation where I needed help and I knew that she was the person who was the best in that field. I hesitated, and as I hesitated the situation deteriorated, until in desperation, I phoned her. I asked politely after her health, her children. Her answers where brief, careful and to the point. Not a good sign. Finally, with great trepidation, I raised the topic that was preying on my mind.
"I need some of your expert advice." I said
"You guys always want something."
"I did offer to listen to you six months ago. And I said there were no strings attached. Phone calls, Skype. I offered, you turned me down."
"I was in a bad place six months ago."
"I gathered as much. I am sorry."
"Yes. Well. I recovered. No thanks to any old friends." Sarcasm dripping off the word old like syrup off a spoon.
I know when it is time to beat a hasty retreat, this was definitely one of them.
"OK. Sorry that I disturbed you. Or didn't disturb you. I don't know which you wanted. Good bye, you have my number. Call if you need someone to talk to."
I rang off, sighed and pondered my next steps. Marge had really been my last resort and now that avenue was closed to me.
Then the phone started to ring, I looked at the display. "Marge"
I hesitated, not willing to endure another sulky battering.
She rang twice more.
Finally I answered.
"Hello?"
"You always were too sensitive of my feelings. You always thought I was a delicate, hot house flower that needed protecting and that I had it in for you."
"Oh?"
"You also have an inflated sense of your own superiority. I say "old friends" and you immediately think I am talking directly about you."
"I am not an old friend?"
"Of course you are. An old and very dear friend. However you are not one of those who flocked around here trying to "comfort" me while all the time want to lay me."
Five years of being single and half an hour of irritation kick in.
"Now who says I don't want to lay you?"
There is silence on the other side of the phone, then
"I've heard stories about you and the trail of women in your wake. Absolute is the word used to describe you. Absolute genius in bed, absolute bastard when it comes to relationships. I didn't believe them. Not him, not George. George is too caring, too sensitive. He wouldn't do that. Now, after our conversations, I am not so sure."
I stayed quiet. Anything I said would be damaging, but I was intrigued. There was no anger, more curiosity, laughter and something unidentifiable. This was not the married woman I had known years ago.
"Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
I swallowed hard, looked at the ceiling, at the floor, "I don't seem to be the only one who has changed."
"Oh?"
"I heard things in your voice now, that would have urged me to be a very bad person while we were both still married."
"Who says they weren't there then?"
I swallowed again, hard. Heard my ex-wife teasing me one night as we made love after visiting Marge and her husband.
"Who you thinking of? Me or Marge. She has the hots for you."
I laughed, told her I thought only of her and tried to banish thoughts of Marge for the rest of the evening.
"Well?"
"A good thing I was so innocent otherwise our marriages would have blown apart far sooner than they did."
"Innocent? You? Nah. Not innocent. Just careful. Which, I must hasten to add just made you more interesting. And not so innocent that you didn't cop a feel in the pool one night. Now that excited me. Hubby scored big time later on and didn't know what he did to turn me on. I couldn't tell him it was you slipping your hand into my bikini bottom in the pool that did it now could I?"
I remembered the incident. We were playing water polo in their pool. I was seriously inebriated, actually all of us were. I was unable to resist the chance of slipping my hand into her bikini bottom. I did it, realised what I had done and waited for the scream, the slap. None came. She rubbed herself back and forth twice then moved off rapidly leaving me completely immobile. She scored a goal while I tried to catch my breath. Nothing more was said or hinted at and I put it down to alcohol and her gamesmanship.
