As men get older, they often look back and think about that one girl that they never got the chance to be with, but always wanted. For me, that girl was my cousin Loni. Though we never had any real chance to get together back then, not too long ago I did have an opportunity to change that and set at least one thing from my past to rights.
I was traveling with my job and ended up in Dallas where much of my father's family still lived. We used to be very close, but over the last twenty years we had all lost touch with one another. Now there was a family reunion about once every ten years. I had missed the last one, so when I got into town I called one of my older aunts.
"Victor," Aunt Leslie said happily when she heard it was me. "It's been so long since we heard from you."
"I know," I told her. "Living so far away definitely has its disadvantages."
It was a white lie, for sure. I didn't regret being away from most of the family. There were one or two of them that I wanted to catch up on. One of them was Leslie's own daughter, Loni, so as quickly as I could I steered the conversation to her.
Loni was the only female cousin that I had that was around my age. She was two years younger than me, so she used to hang around with my younger sister when the family got together, but Loni played an important part of my fantasy life when I was growing up.
She was petite and had blonde curly hair like Shirley Temple. But, Loni didn't look childlike, even as a child. There was something wild and sensuous about her even as a young girl. As soon as I hit puberty, Loni had been one of the girls I dreamed about most, especially right before and after a family get-together.
I had another cousin named Eric that was a crude little bastard when I knew him growing up. When we were sixteen, Eric had told me that Loni and her brother Jimmy, who was one year older than we were, had regular sex together. Even back then I had a taste for incest and the thought of Loni getting fucked by her older brother drove me crazy. Encouraged by that supposed revelation, I even made a pass at my younger sister, only she turned me down flat.
Eric was a liar. I knew that. Still, I couldn't get Loni and the possibility of her having a relationship with her brother out of my mind.
Aunt Leslie told me that Loni was divorced now. I got her phone number and called Loni up and asked her if she'd like to have dinner with me one night while I was in town. She happily agreed, saying it would be great to catch up with our two branches of the family.
I made reservation at a very swank restaurant known for its dinner and dancing. Loni had loved to dance back then and even though I'd never done much dancing as a boy, my wife Denise had made me take lessons later in life and I knew I could hold my own. We'd have fun together. I really didn't expect anything more than that.
I met Loni in the hotel lobby. She had told me that it would be easier for her to park her car at the hotel than for me to try to find her apartment in the now unfamiliar city. She met me early after her work and showed up with a change of clothes and a makeup bag.
"Mind if I change in your room, cuz?" she asked after our hellos. "My work duds aren't up to your restaurant's standards, but I brought along something that ought to do the trick."
"Sure, Loni," I told her happily. "We have plenty of time. If you even want to hit the shower before we take off, help yourself."
She smiled, her blue eyes flashing the wit and intelligence I remembered from our younger days. She still had her blonde hair, though now it was cut shorter into a more businesslike style. She still carried a trim figure, but there was more flare to her hips these days and breasts a size or two bigger than I remembered.
"Haven't had an offer from a man like that in too long," she laughed as I led her toward the elevator. I helped her carry her things upstairs and we chatted amiably as we rode the elevator together.
"Want some wine while we're waiting?" I asked her, playfully. We had grown up in a tee-totaling Baptist family and alcohol still wasn't acceptable at family gatherings. But Loni was supposed to have a wilder side, so I thought I'd risk it.
"Goodness," Loni said laughing playfully. "Inviting strange women up to your hotel and now drinking wine. You've certainly changed since we were kids."
"I moved to New Orleans, cuz," I reminded her. "The alcohol practically flows out of the tap down there. And I assure you I've seen stranger things working in the French Quarter all these years than I'll ever see in Dallas."
"That's probably true I guess," Loni said laughingly. "I always wanted to come down for Mardi Gras. I've seen all those juicy pictures on the Internet!"
"Hey, I didn't take most of those," I grinned at her. "The pictures can't do justice to the madness of Fat Tuesday, believe me. So, Loni, how about that wine? Red or white?"
"OK, since we can catch a cab to the restaurant, let's get a bottle of red if you can handle it. Say a nice Cabernet?" she suggested.
"Sure! You start sprucing up and I'll call room service," I said, sitting down on the king size bed and turning toward the phone. "If you're not out when it gets here, I'll give you a knock."
I called room service and ordered the wine, offering the steward a premium if he could run a bottle and some glasses up to the room in the next ten minutes. He showed up and I gave him a nice tip, then poured out two glasses before I knocked on the door.
"Room service, Ma'am," I said after rapping for her attention.
Loni opened up the door and the sight of her almost took away my breath.
She was standing in her stocking feet in a white half slip and a very attractive push-up bra. She had most of her make-up on and was about to apply some lipstick that was generally the same shade as the wine I was supposed to be offering her.
"Well?" she asked, leaning back against the bathroom counter after an awkward pause. "You brought wine, cuz? Or were you just trying to peak at me in the bathroom like you used to do?"
"Oh, yea," I said snickering. "I did bring some wine, even though the view seemed to have driven it from my head for a bit."
"Thanks, Victor," she laughed and added, "that's the best compliment anyone's given me in years."
"Well that's nothin', darlin'," I said in my best Texas drawl. "I got a million more where that came from and from where I stand you deserve every one of them."
"Haven't you developed a golden tongue, cuz," she laughed quietly, then took the wine I extended and turned back toward the mirror. Then, looking into it at me, she thoughtfully added, "No wonder your wife scooped you up so quick after you moved down to Louisiana."
I smiled back at her reflection, understanding the message.
"Good idea, Loni," I told her. "Keep reminding me tonight that I'm a married man. I'm gonna need that."
We laughed together and reluctantly I left the doorway and went back into the room. I had found a classical music station that seemed to be about the only thing that wasn't playing country music. At least, the only music I could tolerate anyway.
So I was surprised in just a moment when Loni came out still in the same state of undress and sat down on the other side of the hotel bed to talk.
"You said the reservations aren't until 7:30, right?" she asked. When I nodded, she explained, "No sense me getting my dress wrinkled for the next hour then. You don't mind, do you? You were always the best behaved of all our generation when we were growing up."
"Well, except for Jimmy and you two girls, that's not saying much. Eric ended up in jail, didn't he? All of Uncle Ronnie's kids ended up pretty wild from what I heard from Mom and Dad." I said, summarizing what I knew of the family history.
"Oh, they're wild all right," she said sarcastically. "They've all been divorced at least twice, just like me."
"That's not what I meant, Loni," I said seriously. "My oldest sister Melinda got divorced too remember and I've talked through it with enough of my friends to know that it happens to the best of people too, not just the worst."
"Yeah, well it's still the shits, Victor, if you don't mind me being blunt. And talking through it with someone else doesn't really prepare you for living through it yourself," she said, sighing as she leaned back.
Her breasts flattened somewhat as she leaned back and I saw the brown tips of her areola in the skimpy bra. Loni took a long draught of the wine and I stood up to refresh both our glasses.
"Anything about them you want to tell me about, or would you rather discuss something else tonight," I asked her, trying to clear the air between us a little.
"Why don't you tell me how you did it?" she asked contemplatively. “You've been married over twenty years now, haven't you?"
"Yeah, but it more the girl that picked me than what I did, Loni," I told her sincerely. "She and I just seem to fit. Not that we haven't been through our share of problems."
"Oh really!" she teased, shaking her hands as though freighting fear. "After what I've seen, tell me the troubles your marriage has been through, cuz."
"You're probably right," I nodded agreeably. "About the toughest thing we've been through was when I found out five years ago that my wife had been having an affair with her boss for three years."
"Oh, sorry, cuz. Guess I was just being a bitch again," she said apologetically.
"You couldn't know," I told her easily. "It's past history anyway. I was working too much and it was just a mid-life thing she was going through. Once we've gotten through it, we've actually got a better relationship now than we've had in years."
"Really! So no bitterness, Victor?" she sat up and asked. "You didn't get the itch to rush out and get even or anything?"
"I guess I'd done that years before," I admitted. "So, no. I didn't."
