Never Too Late to Play: The Profile 2

Chapter 2

I am a vivacious and confident woman in her prime, looking to add some excitement to my life without disrupting my stable marriage. With a zest for life and a youthful spirit, I believe in embracing every opportunity for growth and pleasure. I'm not interested in emotional entanglements or drama, just mutually satisfying encounters with like-minded individuals who appreciate the finer things in life.

“How’s that?” Stephen asked.

They’d been workshopping the profile description together for a few weeks now, and Stephen seemed to be doing a better job not pushing it all the time. Julianna appreciated the restraint, although she still wasn’t super sure about any of it.

“It’s better than when we started,” she offered. “‘Mutually satisfying encounters with like-minded individuals’ sounds a bit stiff.”

Also, is that really what she was looking for? Before all of this started, she definitely would have said no way. But Stephen’s persistence—even the more restrained version of it—must have been wearing her down.

Stephen typed away at the computer on the kitchen table as Julianna was depositing checks via her phone, grumbling as the online checking app failed to recognize the images. Many of her clients paid by check, which Stephen found quaint.

She adjusted her reading glasses and tried again to take a photo, her tongue escaping the corner of her mouth in concentration.

“How about this,” he said. “‘I’m not interested in emotional entanglements or drama’—”

“That’s definitely true,” she said, not looking up from her work.

Stephen continued without pause. “—‘just a good time with a good looking man who knows how to show me a good time.’”

“Excessive use of ‘good’. Don’t you think?”

“I was trying to be poetic.” Stephen didn’t look wounded at all. He was used to her.

“It’s better.” She closed her checkbook and folded the last of the bills, then took off her glasses.

“Uh oh,” he said, recognizing the gesture. It said, Time for a Serious Talk. 

“When did this all start?”

“This, as in—”

“Your fantasy. About me and other men.” It still made her flush to say, every single time. Just uttering it aloud was like a transgression. She could never do that. Never. Not actually.

Stephen hesitated.

“Help me understand.” She reached across the table and clasped his hands in hers. She ran her thumb along his wedding band, feeling the bumps and scratches etched in the soft gold. Their hands were no longer those of unblemished youth, but they were familiar. Her own wedding ring glimmered in the kitchen light. “It’s okay, Stephen. I’m not going to judge, but I do want to understand.”

“Honestly, it’s probably been there since almost the beginning.” At first, he kept his eyes on their hands, and when he did look up at her, it was with those bashful eyes of the man she’d fallen for. She still remembered how out of place that looked in the eyes of this burly construction worker. Now, he fell into an uneasy smile as he pressed on. “You remember that time we were out at Nines?”

She vaguely remembered a lounge by that name, back when they lived in the city, but couldn’t remember anything remarkable about it. She shook her head.

“That’s so funny, because I can still remember it so vividly.” He shut his eyes, as if sinking into his memory. “We’d just started dating. You were 22, and I finally realized that you were no longer my friend’s kid sister, but this vibrant—and hot—woman who I was starting to fall for…”

She shook her head, still not remembering the night.

“You wore this short… skater dress, I think they’re called? Casual and cool yet so sexy. It was made of that crushed velvet material that was so popular back then. Maroon. And your hair was so long at the time.”

“Wow, I don’t remember any of this.” She felt bad as soon as she said it, watching Stephen grimace. Clearly the night meant something to him. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

“It wasn’t really anything so dramatic. I got held up, you arrived first. By the time I got there, you were at the bar chatting with some guy, and I just felt… unworthy.”

“What did I do?”

“As soon as you saw me, you dismissed the guy. I felt silly for feeling any jealousy at all.”

“But it still stuck with you,” she said. One thing still confused her though. “So that’s when you realized you wanted me to sleep with other men?”

Stephen’s face went bright red. “Oh, no. That was years in the making. No, the Nines incident was the first step on a long journey.”

“So help me understand it. Be my guide, Stephen. When did it go from jealousy to something else?”

“There were so many little moments, but…” His eyes darted back and forth as he searched his memory—or perhaps his courage. “But maybe there were a few standouts.”

She was quiet, giving him space to go on.

“I think maybe the first time that things started to change was when we ran into your old… friend, Aiden.”

Now it was Julianna’s time to feel the heat along her face. Aiden Stone was a photographer she’d met while modeling, and had a brief fling with in the time before Stephen entered her life. This was an encounter that she did remember. Quite vividly. Aiden had that kind of effect.

Stephen picked up on that flicker of recognition, too, making Julianna blush even more. “It was like a year into our marriage,” he said. “And we were at some gallery opening. You were wearing this sleek black dress.”

“I remember that dress,” she said. She remembered how it was backless, and how exposed she felt wearing it.

“We were standing in front of this really provocative photo, trying to figure out what it was, when he came up behind us. ‘Stunning piece, isn't it?’ I remember him saying, but his eyes were on you, not the photo.”

“I remember that night,” Julianna whispered. 

“Me too.”

***

“Stunning piece, isn’t it?”

The man’s voice wasn’t especially deep or resonant, but Stephen was struck by how confident he was. When he glanced over, Stephen was caught off guard by the way this guy’s eyes lingered on the bare skin of Julianna’s back. It was like he was recalling a memory, and in that moment, Stephen knew that they’d been lovers once.

Julianna turned, seemingly taken aback. “Aiden?”

“It hasn’t been that long,” the man said, running his fingers through his thick, dark hair. He was a little older than the two of them at the time—early 30s, perhaps—but Stephen remembered thinking how sophisticated and worldly this guy was. He seemed to notice Stephen standing there, but didn’t move to introduce himself. He just turned back to Julianna and said, “You look amazing, as always.”

“Thanks.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and preened under the attention. She seemed to remember Stephen—or maybe he just imagined the lapse in time. “Aiden, this is my husband, Stephen. Stephen, this is Aiden. We… worked together a few years back.”

There was definitely a hesitation there, and that sent a sickening jolt through Stephen’s core.

“Aiden’s a photographer,” Julianna rushed on.

“Nice to meet you, Aiden.” Stephen was proud of himself for not hesitating to hold out his hand. This guy may have fucked his wife back before they were a thing, but she’d ended up with him in the end. “Did you ever shoot with Julianna?”

“A few times, yes,” Aiden said with an unreadable smile. “She’s a great subject. As I’m sure you know.”

“Oh, for sure.”

“You two, please stop,” Julianna said with a blushing laugh. “Aiden, do you have anything in tonight’s show?”

“I do, actually. Far side. Just a few pieces I’m working on.”

“That’s wonderful, Aid.”

Aid. The familiarity in that nickname sent Stephen spiraling, if just a little bit. Thank goodness he’d already had a glass of wine.

“Is it as provocative as this one?” Stephen asked.

Aiden squinted at the enlarged photograph, which Stephen was pretty sure was a closeup of a woman’s inner thigh. “No, not quite,” he chuckled. “This may be a good conversational piece, but the people here aren’t going to buy something like this, and while I like to think of myself as an artist, I also have bills.”

“You’ve grown up some,” Julianna said.

Aiden scratched the back of his neck and looked a bit sheepish. “We all need to grow up, you know? You probably helped me realize that.”

There had been men who hit on Julianna while they’d been together—incidents like the one at Nines that amounted to nothing. This was the first time Stephen had met an ex, though, and his reaction was not what he’d expected. The jealousy was there, sickening like an overripe melon. He didn’t even need to close his eyes to imagine Julianna gasp this man’s name as he climbed over her naked body.

But in that image, raw and unwanted, he felt something new—arousal. A whole scene grew out of the queasy sensation. She was in a studio, wearing nothing but a sheet over her lithe body as he circled her with his camera, making eyes at him, smiling that bright, welcoming smile. He’d tell her to strip. She would. He’d get closer, on the bed, over her. He’d put the camera down as she tugged him close and kissed him and—

“Stephen?”

“Hm? Oh, sorry, must have zoned out.” 

Julianna was studying him with concern when he blinked away the daydream.

“Sorry, the wine and the long day are just catching up with me. I’m going to go track down some coffee. I’ll catch up with you two.”

It was a reckless thing to suggest, but he really was drunk and tired and not thinking entirely rationally. Call it self-loathing or self-pitying, but in that moment, Stephen was in the mood for a self-inflicted wound.

Julianna wasn’t having it, although she didn’t know exactly what was going on. “It’s okay, we can head out, honey.”

“We just got here. It’s fine.” Stephen still didn’t understand why he was arguing for this, but like the stubborn man that he was, once decided, he bullishly pressed on. He was already back away from them. “I’ll catch up.”

He turned his back on a thoroughly confused Julianna before he lost his nerve, then went off in search of the bar, leaving Julianna alone with her charming ex-lover. 

There was no coffee, but for better or worse, there was more wine. He swiped one of those, made himself scarce on the opposite side of the gallery from the two of them, and tried to reflect on what was going on.

Julianna was gorgeous. He’d married up. She was once a model, and he was just a construction worker at the time, going to night school for his MBA. She rubbed shoulders—and a whole lot more—with the kind of people who attended art gallery openings such as this one, or had pieces in art galleries. This was her world—or could be. It was in this time in their relationship that he really started to wonder if he was holding her back.

And he didn’t want to do that. He loved her. He wanted her to live her best life.

So he found himself stretching out his time at the bar, choosing to stand in the longest line, taking his drink over to the art pieces close to them and observing them without actually seeing a thing. This became very clear when a pretty blond came over and said to him, “I think it’s sexy. You?”

The way she looked at him was full of suggestion and innuendo—or so his wine-lubricated brain interpreted. “Uh, yeah, I… I don’t really see it.”

She had sharp, dark eyebrows that rose into her platinum bangs as she smiled at him, and as flattering as it was to be hit on by this woman, he mostly felt guilty. Also, he realized that this wasn’t the way that Julianna had been acting with Aiden at all. Aiden may have been his wife’s ex-lover, but what he’d thought was flirtation was merely politeness, or old familiarity.

“I’m sorry, I need to…” And he shuffled off before he could finish that sentence.

Stephen spotted the two before the crowd. They were standing before a painting, rather than a photograph, and Stephen slowed his approach as he watched their interaction. His heart raced as Aiden leaned in close, whispering something that made Julianna laugh and blush. Stephen wanted to rush in—but he also wanted to watch, to see where this went, his insecurities and desires clashing.

Aiden said something to her again, and Julianna seemed to hesitate. Stephen’s mind went to the darkest places—did he ask her if she wanted to get out of there, to find somewhere more private? Or was he simply telling her that she could do better?

Julianna looked around, scanning the crowd, and finally she saw Stephen there. Relief seemed to flood through her, just as embarrassment raced through him. “There you are,” she said, her mouth forming the words even before Stephen could actually hear them through the din.

“I couldn’t find any coffee,” Stephen said lamely. He felt like he’d been caught red-handed, that she could look at him and see that he’d been spying and read his confused emotions. That she was judging him for wanting to watch her flirt with her old lover.

But Julianna didn’t see any of that. Instead, she saw her husband and her true love and the insecurities that she had caused when she was at an old boyfriend’s side.

“We were going to get a cigarette,” Aiden said to Stephen. “The gallery doesn’t let anyone smoke inside.”

So they weren’t going to go someplace quiet to fuck.

“You smoke?” Aiden asked.

“Uh, no.” And neither did he think Julianna did.

“I’m actually kind of tired myself,” Julianna said, linking her arm into Stephen’s. “You didn’t find coffee, did you?”

“No, just more wine.”

Julianna’s laugh was musical as ever, but Stephen detected the forced note in it. “Then I’ll drive. Ready?”

A part of him was sad to let this dynamic go. Another part was already wondering when it would happen again, and couldn’t wait to feel that sickly, sticky, delicious jealousy all over again.

“Ready.”

“It was nice catching up with you, Aiden. Good luck selling your photos.”

“Good to see you, too, Julianna. And Stephen, take care of her.”

In the car, before turning the ignition on, Julianna ran her hand along the inside of his thigh and said, “You know you have nothing to worry about, right?”

“Uh, what do you mean?”

“I know you were jealous, and… I just want you to know that… you don’t ever have to worry about that. I’d never…”

Cheat. She couldn’t even say it. And yet, a part of him wanted to hear her say it, like a trigger word. Instead, he forced a smile as his emotions continued to churn.

“I know. I’m sorry that I get like that,” he said, although he rode the angst all the way back to their home, and all the way up to their bedroom.

Alone, amidst their familiar things, Stephen pulled Julianna into a searing kiss—the kind that he imagined Aiden used to give her. His hands roamed her curves, traced her hair back the way Aiden had been dying to do all night long.

She responded eagerly, hurriedly, kissing him back, tugging at his clothes, eager to feel skin on skin. Stephen laid her back on the bed, trailing kisses along her collarbone before capturing a pert nipple in his mouth. It swelled and hardened, Julianna’s fingers tracing through his hair—thinning even back then. She arched into his touch, moaning, filling his mouth with her breast. 

Behind his closed eyes, he became his wife’s former lover. He grazed her nipples with his teeth, drawing a sharp gasp, before surging over her and kissing her hard. Her hands caressed him, tugged at him, groped his ass in a way that he swore she didn’t normally do. When he entered her, he wondered if she was thinking about Aiden plunging into her. When she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper, he wondered if this is how Aiden had fucked her.

Their lovemaking was fierce and primal, fueled by the night's emotional undercurrents. Stephen pounded into her relentlessly, imagining that he was both Aiden from the past and Stephen from the present, there to reclaim his wife. Julianna was just as ardent, meeting him thrust for thrust, urging him on with breathy pleas and nails digging into his back. They reached their peak together, bodies locked tight as wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over them.

Afterward, they lay entwined, hearts racing and limbs heavy with satisfaction. Julianna traced patterns on Stephen's chest, a contented smile on her face. “Mmm, that was fun. I should take you to gallery openings more often.”

Stephen chuckled, keeping his tumultuous thoughts to himself.

***

“I remember that night,” Julianna said quietly after listening to Stephen’s story. “But I had no idea that’s how you felt. I just felt bad about making you jealous.”

In the days and weeks that followed the gallery event, Julianna had gone out of her way to make Stephen feel better, gingerly reassuring him that she loved him. She turned down invitations that don't include him, dressed more conservatively, and showered him with affection.

“I know. And that kind of set us on this path,” he said. “I should have said more, but you and I… we never really talked about that stuff. I was so afraid of what you’d think of me if I told you that deep down, I kind of ached for the thrill of uncertainty. That when I thought back on you laughing at whatever Aiden had said, or what would have happened if you’d gone and had that cigarette with him…”

“Nothing would have happened,” she said.

“I know, but you see? That’s kind of where my head was at. Maybe still is at.”

“Clearly. You’re still leaving me alone with good looking men,” she said dryly.

Stephen flushed. “Is it a pattern if it happens thirty years apart?”

“I’m sure if we thought about it, there are other moments when you set me up.”

He licked his lips, eager to move them along. “So what did he say to you at that gallery opening? Something that made you blush.”

“Honestly, I have no idea. Probably something about the photo being dirty.”

“Really? You don’t remember?”

“He… he told me that I should shoot with him again. For old times.”

Even now, decades later, her confession made him feel dizzy, washing over him like a blaze of heat. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him no, of course. I reminded him that I was married.” She clasped his hand in hers. “But you didn’t think I would, did you?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t think I did.”

“So you started to build up a defense mechanism after that. Your fantasy.”

He was quiet. She was slowly starting to understand, but it was still difficult.

“Stephen?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t leave me alone anymore, okay? Don’t leave me out of your thoughts? I don’t want to live my life without you. I haven’t built these last three decades with you because I was settling, okay?”

He nodded, meeting her eyes. “Okay, yes. And I get that.”

“Yet you still want me to put my profile online for other men to read?”

Her heart hopped and bounced at her own question, and she could tell that Stephen’s was doing the same.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s do it. Together.”