Autumn had always been Lacy Curtis' favorite time of the year. Back when she had simply been Lacy Ferguson, a normal, happy and well adjusted child growing up in the Maryland suburbs, she had always loved raking the fallen leaves in her front yard with her older brothers and her Father, only to dive headlong into them after they had arranged them into a colorful and sprawling pile.
Now 26, married with a career, Lacy still couldn't help but feel like that happy and contented child each Fall when the trees began to change color and a nip slowly took hold of the late afternoon air.
Having graduated Cum Laude from Georgetown four years earlier, Lacy had quickly landed a job as an accountant at one of DC's largest financial firms. While it did provide a handsome paycheck, still childless and not the frivolous spending type, to occupy her free time and quench her creative jones, Lacy spent most of her weekends working at the same florist shop she had helped work her way through college at.
A complete departure from the bland existence of her 40 hour week job in front of a computer screen, Lacy valued her Saturday afternoons arranging flowers in the shop and making deliveries around town. Not that it cut into the time she could spend with Daniel, her Husband of two years. He had a busy career of his own working for an engineering firm and spent a majority of his weekends studying for the night classes he was taking to get his MBA.
Even though Lacy Curtis was living the American Dream of having a good job, a new house and a handsome and ambitious Husband, each time she would drive down through those residential neighborhoods and see those nameless children playing in their yards while she made deliveries for the shop, Lacy would feel something missing in her life.
Barely five feet tall and slightly waif, Lacy had to strain to see over the delivery truck's steering wheel as she drove through town.
"You're still a child yourself," she would often try to rationalize een though she knew 26 could turn into 46 just like that.
"It's just your self esteem, or lack thereof," Lacy knew, deep down knowing a child would only complicate things as she and Daniel each tried to get their careers established.
"Daniel's right...just like he always is," Lacy mumbled bitterly under her breath as she once again questioned whether she got married because she was supposed to, or wanted to.
"Not like we could conceive a child right now even if we both wanted it," She sarcastically groaned, noting the nonexistent passion in their relationship. "It's been easily a month and a half since we've done anything."
Lacy had accepted much of the blame for that herself. Never comfortable in her own skin when it came to her sexuality, she had always felt inadequate with her small breasts, narrow boyish hips and pale complexion. It didn't help either that Lacy had a very introspective demeanor and never allowed herself to get sucked into situations were she didn't have a certain level of control. While her academics flourished, her social life and personal discovery never kept pace and unfortunately even in marriage, she had committed herself to a man that, like her, had never seen sexual gratification as something to be worked for.
Even though she had lost her virginity in her dorm room her Sophomore year of college, long before she had ever met Daniel, Lacy, with her straight auburn hair, reserved charm and bookwormish looks, had never fully given in to enjoying the potential fruits of her libido.
"Got about 30 minutes to kill," she said to herself in the truck, checking her watch at a stoplight about five blocks from where her Father had bought a house after the dissolution of her parents' marriage.
Reaching for her cell phone to call and make sure he was home, before she could grab it the light turned green and the car behind her honked impatiently.
"For Pete sake...You don't have to call your Dad and let him know you're coming...you know his door is always open," she chided herself as she weaved through the outskirts of town to the secluded plot of land her Father now called home.
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Elliot Ferguson had been divorced for two and a half years, but in truth he and Lacy's Mother had become detached long before that.
Naturally staid, Elliot's easy going and non-descript personality was in stark contrast to the abrasive and non stop energy of his wife of over 20 years. Corina hadn't been like that when they first married, but as the inevitable stress of aging combined with her own insecurities and prescription drug use, she became something her Husband, as well as her three children, struggled to endure.
Elliot and Corina had held the facade of marriage together until all three kids finished college but as soon as the nest was empty, Elliot wasted little time filing the papers.
In those private moments of self relfection however, it would occasionally gnaw at Elliot over how fast Corina had latched on to another man and married him after their divorce.
"A parasite needs a host...that's why she's moved on and you haven't," he would correctly deduce, but it was still of little solace considering he was now single and in his late 40's, with no idea how to deal with the dating scene. Not that the thought of settling down and trying to learn the ropes with another woman was something he really wanted to stomach.
A lot really hadn't changed in the way Elliot Ferguson went about living his life in the years following the divorce. He still dove headlong into his job as a researcher for several national magazines and the 12 hour days that came with it prevented him from harping too often on inadequacies in other areas of his life.
He had decided to not fight his Ex-wife's desire to keep the house and he took his chunk of the settlement and bought a smaller cottage styled home about a half hour from DC that was well off the main drag and shrouded by a lovely stand of majestic pines.
When Elliot did have some free time, especially on the weekends, he traveled into town and took in a lot of the cultural offerings that Corina never would have the patience or will to sit through. While he was in DC on those occasional Saturdays, Elliot would have dinner downtown and at least try the upscale bar scene before heading home. It wasn't an easy chore for him however.
In many ways, even though he was now 49, self sufficent and knowledgeable about a great many topics, when it came to interacting with strangers, especially women, Elliot was nothing more than the awkward 14 year old he'd always been. It wasn't until he met a bartender at one of those clubs on a mid summer Saturday night, that many of those same insecurities and curiosities of childhood would finally get the better of him.
With the privacy he had created in his life, the last thing Elliot Ferguson ever thought was the shameful, guilty pleasure he had discovered would ever come back to haunt him.
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