Thursday, September 27, 2007

Chapter 10

Tricia slept poorly that night. She tossed and turned and kept thinking about the time she and Jaime had spent together years before. She also found herself fantasizing about him now. At one point she woke up with a start from a very vivid dream that had left her totally aroused. It had felt so real that she was disappointed when she didn’t find Jaime beside her. That lead to her thinking more about her dream and her state of arousal which soon had her hands roaming her body as she fantasized about them being Jaime’s hands. As she had the other morning she experienced a powerful climax.

This time however she didn’t get up feeling guilty and go take a shower. Instead with a smile on her face and a small enough twinge of guilt that she was surprised at it’s lack on intensity, Tricia rolled over and fell back asleep.

She woke in a panic with the sudden memory that she was to meet Jaime for breakfast this morning and that she had not set the alarm clock. Shooting bolt upright in the bed she looked at the clock.

“Oh Shit!” It was 9:15 and she was to meet Jaime in 15 minutes. Jumping out of bed she ran into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She briefly thought about skipping it and just maybe not being late but she just couldn’t, especially when she blushingly remembered the wild climax she had experienced earlier dreaming of him.

Jaime was leaning back against the wall near the entrance to the buffet looking at his watch when Tricia came around the corner so fast she nearly ran into a old couple leaving the buffet.

“God I’m sorry!” Tricia said to Jaime as he looked up at her. “How late am I? I didn’t wake up until 9:15!”

Jaime smiled. “I thought you were the one who wanted to do this earlier.”

“I was the one who wanted to do this last night!” Tricia shot back. “Then I would have slept better and woken up on time. Or I wouldn’t have slept at all and I wouldn’t have cared.”

Jaime looked at her in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Oh crap!” Tricia said. “I didn’t meant that like it sounded. I meant maybe we’d have talked all night. Just talked. That is all I meant.”

She realized she was blushing furiously and that Jaime probably knew she was lying through her teeth.

He had a very surprised look on his face and looked like he was going to say something and then changed his mind. With a smile he said, “If you say so. For the record you were only 20 minutes late and considering your wet hair means you took a shower then that is pretty good.”

Tricia laughed. “Well I hate like hell to have you see me this way. I’d rather have had time to dry it and style it a bit but I was afraid you’d leave. I had to take a shower though. I could only cut so many corners.”

“I remember what your hair looks like when you first wake up remember,” Jaime said in amusement.  “For that matter I remember what it looks like wet. I remember being in the shower washing it for you.”

Knowing she was blushing she was so flustered she couldn’t say anything. She made a couple of attempts and finally sputtered to a stop.

Jaime laughed, obviously enjoying flustering her. “Why don’t we get some breakfast. My tournament starts in a bit over two hours.”

They were soon seated with the breakfast of their choice from the buffet.. Tricia found herself sitting there watching Jaime eat. She kept flashing back to her dream and had to fight hard not to blush. She thought he looked just about like he had eight years before, more handsome if anything. He also seemed more relaxed, more confident.

She was brought out of her thoughts and back to reality when she heard him ask. “So was Matt proud of your results?”

With horror she realized she had completely forgotten to call Matt. “Oh my GOD! I forgot to call him!”

“Well why don’t you do it now. I can leave the table if you’d like.”

“No, no!” Tricia said. “I should call him. I still can’t believe that he isn’t calling me every hour on the hour.”

“I know you said he was literally doing that and checking all your mail. I guess he isn’t still doing that?”

Tricia shook her head. “He still takes jabs at me trying to make me feel guilty but he’s stopped checking up on me so constantly. This has been weird though. He made no fuss when I wanted to come here and he has barely called at all. When I call I never seem to get him and he is slow calling back. It’s kind of weird.”

“Maybe he just trusts you now.” Jaime suggested.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure it was as much about trust as it was about control. It’s really odd for him to be like this.”

“Well I’m sure there is a good reason,”

“I wonder if he is having an affair. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass?” Tricia said.

“Do you really think that or are you just thinking out loud?”

Tricia shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how I’d feel. He hasn’t been very attentive lately. He’s really back to about how he was when you and I met.”

“And are you looking again?” Jaime asked.

“No!” Tricia said. “But hell I said I wasn’t looking for what happened between us then either did I?”

“Yes you did,” Jaime said. “But it happened anyway.”

Tricia nodded.

“Tricia did you come here after getting my card thinking I was suggesting we pick up where we left off if you came here?” Jaime asked. “That is not what I was doing when I sent you the card. I was trying to let you know I’d be here without leaving any way that Matt could figure out it was me.”

“I believe you,” Tricia said. “That is really what I thought.. Being here with you is different than I thought it would be.”

“Different how?”

“Well I remember how it felt before,” Tricia said. “We were so crazy about each other. Until it all came to a screeching halt it was the most romantic and sensual time I’ve ever experienced. Now it feels…different.”

Jaime looked at her for a moment and then took a deep breath, then he sighed and said, “You didn’t think we’d just see one another and pick right up where we left off eight years ago did you? Considering the way it ended that pretty much could not happen. You swore you couldn’t do it anymore and wanted to be faithful to Matt. That was where you were when we last had any contact.”

“Did you ever want to contact me anyway?” Tricia asked.

Jaime nodded “Very much. Over time I got over it. I realized I was being selfish. You were making your life work and the best thing I could do was stay out of your way. I knew you could find me if you wanted to talk. My  email never changed.”

“I thought about it many times Jaime. I just couldn’t. It wasn’t that I justforgot you.”

“I understand Tricia. I didn’t really think you did but I knew if you were going to do what you said you wanted to do then you were going to have to try to pretty much just relegate me to the past.”

“So how are you doing Jaime?” Tricia asked. “You don’t write about family life in your journal the way you did in our letters. I get some from it but not a whole lot. Did things change for you after?”

He shook his head. “No, not really. I’d say things are pretty much as they were except now both kids are out of the house and off to college. I always hoped that would change things but they didn’t, not the way I wanted anyway.”

“What does that mean?”

Jaime shrugged. “Well obviously I have time to play poker now. I gave up doing the consulting stuff I was doing when I met you. I make more playing poker most years and while it’s not as reliable I don’t spend all day dealing with people upset with computer problems.”

“I knew about that. I got that from your journal. I meant your personal life. Unless you’d rather not talk about it.”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know. That’s no different either really. I doubt you want to hear about it really.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Why not?”

Jaime sighed. “Because I bet you have always sort of thought that what happened between me was special and would never happen to me again. It was special but I wasn’t like you. I did not end up with what I wanted out of the whole thing. At the time what I wanted was what we had and that could no longer be.”

Tricia realized what he was saying and felt a flash of jealousy. “So you found yourself somebody else to have an affair with? How long did it take? A couple of weeks?”

Jaime looked at her with a hurt look on his face. Then he said quietly. “Do you really believe that? I told you that you would not want to hear it. I didn’t get over you quickly Tricia. If I had my way we’d still be doing the “Same Time Next Year” thing that we always talked about. It wasn’t my fault that we aren’t you know.”

Taking a deep breath she apologized, then she said. “I still watch that movie from time to time. Matt has no clue why. I feel guilty when I watch it but I also feel wonderful because it brings back wonderful memories.”

“I watch it too,” Jaime said and then as if reading Tricia’s mind from the look on her face he said, “And no, I’ve never even talked about it with another woman. That was our special thing, and still is I guess.”

She studied his face but if he was lying she could not tell. “I’m glad we will always have that at least. I guess I always knew you would probably do it again Jaime. Our situations were different. I’m not completely convinced that I didn’t subconsciously want to get caught by Matt.”

“Really?” Jaime said. “I thought about that a lot and it sure seemed to me that looking back you could have done a lot better job if you didn’t want to get found out. Some of the things you did and the decisions you made seemed to me not nearly as good as somebody as bright as you are could have done.”

She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I talked about that with the counselor some. I’m not sure it helped anything.”

Jaime looked at his watch. “Tricia I really ought to get up to the tournament room. We can talk more later if you would like. Or this can be it and I can just stay out of your way and let you go about the rest of your time here with nointerference.”

“I don’t want you avoiding me,” Tricia said. “But I don’t want to mess up your tournaments either.’

“I’ll be fine,” Jaime said, “How about you? You did good in the first one. Did all this get your mind out of the groove for poker?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I was going to spend today doing satellites to try to get into tomorrow’s $1000 buy in event. I decided I would not just buy in. If I can’t win my way in then I won’t play it.”

Jaime chuckled. “That sounds like you got it out of my journal. And here I am buying in.”

“No,” Tricia said with a smile, “Here you are having a sponsor buy in for you. That is better than winning a satellite.”

Jaime shrugged. “Very true.”

“Ok,” Tricia said. “You get going. Good luck. Will it bother you if I come up and watch later?”

Jaime shook his head. “You can’t get close though. You saw they won’t let spectators in the aisles. You have to stay on the rail.”

“I know,” Tricia said.

They were standing beside the table and Tricia moved around it and gave Jaime a hug which he returned less stiffly this time. She gave him a quick and very sisterly peck on the cheek. “Good luck”

Jaime went toward the poker room and after Tricia sat back down at the table. She had managed not to show how finding out that Jaime had moved on and had another affair had hurt her. She supposed she should have expected it but somehow she’d always pictured him waiting for her. Waiting for what she wasn’t sure…until Matt died of old age?

Wiping tears of jealously and frustration from her face she stood up and stalked back to her room telling herself she was behaving like a jerk. Slamming the door closed before composing herself to call Matt still felt good she thought.

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