10

One year later, to the day and that mantra had shaped the life they now had: One step at a time.

She awoke next to Max, remembering that first time they had made love. The first time they had opened up to each other and said the three magic words that had turned her world upside down in the best of ways. The sun streamed in through the wall to wall windows of his bedroom, turning his light chest hair into strands of gold. Outside, the country landscape sprawled around them and golden light lit up the fields and the backs of the cattle already grazing there.

April thought about everything that happened. All the changes that had taken place, and yet one constant had always remained: the love her and Max had shared.

She had bumped into Brian once during that year. She had been picking up groceries on a Saturday morning and seen him in one of the aisles, picking out diapers. She hadn’t walked up to him to greet him or ask how he was doing. Not out of spite or fear, he had simply been so involved in his task that he hadn’t seemed to notice her and she had thought that had been for the best. His eyes were dark and sunken and his mouth pulled into a tight, grim expression of weariness. She felt sort of sorry for the guy and wondered how he was holding up.

As she checked out, she noticed him walking back to his car where a woman sat waiting for him, her eyes were stern, her mouth pulled down in a perpetual expression of dissatisfaction. In her arms she held a crying baby that she was desperately trying to calm. April watched as Brian climbed into the car and presented his purchase.

“These are the wrong ones!” she heard Melany say. “I specifically said not these ones! These give her a rash.”

“You said these were the ones to get and not the other ones,” said Brian, sounding resigned.

“Do you even hear yourself? Do you know how stupid you sound right now?” said Melany, picking the diapers from his hand and flinging them back into his face.

April ducked away as Brian got out of the car headed back to the store to exchange the diapers. She sat in her car for a while thinking about poor Brian and his fate. Ultimately, she thought, we all have to live with our own decisions. And Brian’s decisions had lead him there.

She thought about Brian as she returned to her happy life with Max out at the ranch. She felt no guilt for it either, nor did she feel any kind of triumph for seeing Brian the way he was. She simply felt gratitude that things had turned out the way they had for her.

Meanwhile Tracey and Marisa had both found their own happy love affairs. Marisa had met a man who was every bit as strong-willed as she was; a tall, solidly built man who ran a security company. His name was Lex and seeing him and Marisa together, she knew they were perfectly suited for one and other. He didn’t pander to her, nor did he maintain a stoic emotional distance, but somehow found just the right amount to soften her harsh façade and break through to the sweetness that she kept hidden from the world.

Tracey’s love interest was a high school basketball coach in his late twenties with a wild sense of humor and the sunny disposition to match her own.

The ladies nights had mostly been replaced by couple’s nights with the six of them, and as a group they were every bit as fun. But every now and again, for old time’s sake, the ladies still got together and danced the night away like the world was ending.

***

April’s fingers moved to Max’s chest and played for a moment in that fine patch of sunlight. Max smiled sleepily, but his eyes remained closed. Step by step, her fingers walked down the trail between his pectoral muscles, along the ridges of his abs and below the sheets.

Her fingers wrapped around his morning hardness and she squeezed gently, watching the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitch ever so slightly. She kissed a nipple, then followed the path of her fingers with kisses until they reached their target.

He groaned, as if still dreaming, as she took his manhood into her mouth, slowly moving her lips up and down the shaft, savoring the length. Once it was slick with her saliva, she lowered herself on top of him. His hips rocked gently as he slid into her and when his eyes finally opened, she had him pinned beneath her, riding him slowly.

He smiled up at her, taking in her naked breasts above him. “Happy anniversary,” said April.

“You can say that again,” he said, cupping her buttocks with his hands, aiding her gentle rhythm.

She moved her hips in slow figure of eights, just the way she knew he loved until her slow rhythm became too much for him to bear and he flipped her onto her back to take charge. His strong hands, stroked and teased, while his powerful thrusts elicited uncontrollable moans of ecstasy from her. He had learned to play her body like a master musician plays an instrument and within seconds, she reached her first glorious climax of the morning.

One year. One incredible year she had spent with this man and even now, when their eyes met, the world seemed to disappear and leave only the two of them.

One year and she could still think of nowhere else she would rather be than with him.

They spent that morning of their first anniversary, in a lust-drunk rhythm of ecstasy, wishing that they could spend forever just like that, him inside her, closer than any two people could physically be, staring into eyes that went on forever and ever and ever.

THE END