The Love Affair: Ch.4

By Nandy Ekle

A quiet little tapping sounded on the door and Christine lifted her head, her eyes shining as bright as stars with anticipation.
“Hello, Jose,” she said as she opened the door and grinned like a silly schoolgirl. He had put on some weight during the year, but she didn’t mind. He was beautiful. She could hardly wait to get her hands on him.
He stepped in and grabbed her. “Christine, my darling. How much I’ve needed you.” He bent and kissed her mouth. From the corner of her eye she watched Bryan drop his empty bottle and reach for a handful of chips. She put her nose to Jose’s neck and sniffed deeply while her hands rubbed his spine. He smelled like he had ridden on the back of the wind—adventure, romance, woods. She loved that smell more than any of the colognes Bryan wore.
“I’ve needed you too, Jose. I’m so glad you’re here.” She shut the door behind him. “So. Tell me what have you been up to?” She rubbed the front of his jacket. She was anxious to find what he had hidden under that cover.
“Oh, just the same old stuff. I’ve flown to the moon and back, captured an evil spy ring, thereby saving an entire world from annihilation, rescued princesses and puppies, sword fought with evil kings, you know.” He shrugged with a playful look in his eyes. “You know my life is nothing without you, my sweetest fan.”
She looked in his face again, searching for that teasing light. Instead she found deep emotion. “Well . . .” Her words shriveled up and melted away as her hands caressed the front of his colorful jacket.
Christine’s eyes darted to Bryan, who sat on the edge of the couch with a bowl of chips on the coffee table under him and the remote control in his hand. Then she turned back to Jose who nodded with a gentle subtleness that spoke volumes to her. I couldn’t wait for your hands to touch me again, his nod told her. I need your attention forever. Any waiting at all is too long for our little trysts.
Christine felt heat rise to her cheeks. Her eyes darted away from Jose’s and she pulled him further into the room. “Let’s sit down before we disturb the coach here.” She smiled and waved her hand toward her husband.
“Oh, no, we don’t want to disturb the coach.” He echoed playfully.
As they settled on the sofa, Christine folded her feet under her dress and sat in her little corner. Jose slowly drifted to the cushion between Christine and Bryan. As soon as his backside touched the couch his arm went around her shoulders and drew her closer to him. She could feel the angles of his side and the warmth of his skin and she knew this was where she belonged.
“Tell me about your life during this past year,” he said.
Bryan jumped off the couch tossing potato chips all around the room. “GOGOGOGOGO,” he screamed at the runner on the screen. “DON’T STOP TO LOOK AROUND, JUST GO.”
“Oh, nothing exciting—just boring old me. I have some new silver strands in my hair, a stronger pair of glasses, a new prescription for my knee and hand pains.”
“’New silver strands of hair.’ I love that. Very poetic. You should write a story about a woman whose silver hairs are worth money.”
“I thought about dyeing them, but I decided I had earned every one of them, so I should show them off.”
“THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT!” Bryan’s shouts at the teams on the tube across from him crescendoed as the players ran down the field.
“I love your silver hairs. They give you an air of serenity. And after everything I’ve seen, I need a little serenity from time to time.”
“Oh, Jose. That’s just a nice way of saying I’m boring.”
“Oh, far from it. You have that quiet wisdom that comes from leading the kind of life you live—introverted but observant of the world around you. That’s exactly what I crave in a . . . friend. Is that what we are, Christine? Friends?”