Sitting there with my friends I come back to the here and now, my flashback to that day fading. I reach out to my water glass to moisten my dry throat, my friends patiently waiting for me.
"After the opening guitar music I was expecting to hear a woman's voice begin singing. Instead I quickly found out that the music was a karaoke recording when Sean started to sing! One of my husbands gifts is
not
a great singing voice, but it didn't matter, because the words he sang were soft and full of love, and their sound echoed in my heart. When it ended, he slowly bent over and softly kissed me, pulling his lips slightly away from mine, quietly said "I love you", and gave me another soft kiss. He straightened up, reached into the tub beneath me and lifted me out, setting me down on a chair. He had a couple of towels ready, and slowly, gently started to dry me. After getting me mostly dry, he helped me to stand up, and (embarrassed) dried my butt.
Soft laughter.
"Then he picked me up and carried me upstairs. Walking into our bedroom, he laid me gently on the bed, pulling up a sheet to cover my body. Then he sat in a chair by the bed and softly caressed my hair. I think I fell asleep in about a minute."
Nobody said anything, overcome by my tale of that night.
I'm sitting here quietly by our bed, and I've stopped touching her hair, she's fallen asleep and I don't want to wake her, even though I really want to continue touching her. She's so beautiful, even more than the woman I saw across a dance floor five years ago, and I'm almost trembling watching her sleep.
After watching her for a while, I become aware of an uneasiness in me, doubt beginning to rise in me. What am I doing! The things I've done this past week, the preparing I've done for tomorrow, up to now have been done with anticipation and thrill. Now, sitting here and watching her, I'm filling rapidly with apprehension and fear.
This could change this wonderful woman I married, change us into something else. That something else may be wonderful, or it may be the first step to damaging what we have now. What an idiot I've been, planning and preparing something grand when a safer step would have been something less spectacular. What can I do? I can't cancel the whole thing, by now I've got Sara worked up for something wild! Do I tone down what I've planned? If she's disappointed, will that be any better than being overwhelmed? Damn it Sean, for once in your life couldn't you have settled for something less than the absolute best?
The letter I've written for her emphasizes that at any time if she's feeling that I'm taking things too far she's to use a safe word to tell me to not be so intense. I'll have to break the role playing we're doing every now and then and remind her that she can say slow down or even stop.
If this blows up in my face I'll never forgive myself.
"The next morning I woke up alone again in our bed. I really wanted Sean to still be in bed with me, I wanted him to wrap me up in his arms and just hold me, but he was still stirring me up. Got myself ready for another day of work and went downstairs to get some breakfast. There was a bowl of fresh fruit sitting on the kitchen table, and a note by it saying there was some yogurt already dished up in the fridge. Opened the door, and the yogurt was there, with another note just behind it, saying that there was some freezer waffles in the toaster. It felt like Sean was sending me off on a scavenger hunt. In front of the toaster was another note, telling me that after eating my breakfast there something in the oven for me, only it wasn't food. I ate in a hurry, wanting to see what was in there. Opened the oven, there was two envelopes and a large box. I grabbed the envelopes first, to give them a fast look. Looked at the smaller envelope and slumped against the stove, on it was written
THE GAME!
"
"In a daze I walked over to the table and sat down, staring at those two words. Looked at the second envelope, and it said READ ME LAST. Opened the first envelope, and pulled out a letter. I've got it here, I'll read it to you."
"My beloved Sara. When you asked me that question last Friday I didn't have the foggiest idea what to do. There have been times in the past where you've driven me mad with lust and I've fallen on you like a starving lunatic (you probably remember them). What did it mean when you said want me to "take you?" It seems to me that you want me to seduce you, overcoming a reluctance to let me make love to you by driving you mad with desire so you'd allow me to do whatever I wanted to do with your luscious body. Which presented me with quite a dilemma, how to overcome a reluctance in you when no reluctance exists (at least you've always been very enthusiastic before). The answer to that was that I had to pretend to be someone else.
Then the problem was whether or not to invent a new persona for you. That time in Vegas when you pretended to be only after my money was very convincing, although a high priced prostitute would probably not have enjoyed herself quite so much. You're explanation as you were leaving that it was an act to convince me to spend more money was plausible but not very believable. I gave it some thought and realized what you had asked me to do. To take
you