Crossing

The First Day: Southampton, England

This was not the most logical thing I’ve done in my life. “This” being flying to London and turning to come home the next day after one day in the capital.

I was with my wife of forty years and we were in a cab in Southampton heading for Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. It was a retirement gift from our children. They were grown and our grandchildren were growing and my wife and I retired or semi-retired a few months before.

Who we are? My name is Jim Brady. I grew up in Brooklyn but moved away before, as they say, it became “Brooklyn.” I taught law at a law school in New York and went into semi-retirement when I turned sixty at the end of the spring semester. I plan on doing writing and consulting work, but for all intents and purposes, I can do what I want to do when I want to do it.

My wife is Diane Brady. She, too, taught, but it was mathematics at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. It’s a village about forty miles north of Times Square and we lived in a nearby town, along Long Island Sound.

The children? We have three. All married. Jim, Jr. is married to Brenda and they live not far from us and have two kids, both boys. Brenda is married to Eric Fisher and they have two girls and a boy. They live outside of Boston. And Courtney is married to Micky Johnson. They don’t have kids and live in Denver.

So they decided we needed to get away, Diane and I, so they gave us the ocean-liner present. In this, I was not doing what I wanted to do. I was doing what Diane wanted to do. But in the end, she’s rarely wrong, especially on vacations. As we approached the ship—I’m sure it’s big enough to be a “ship”—I trusted that she was right. We’d be on board for seven days. At times, we’d be too far from land to be rescued even by helicopter. At least we weren’t worried about icebergs.

So. Seven days in the North Atlantic in October. It is one of the year’s final crossings. Only a few take place when the North Atlantic turns ugly as winter nears. As it happens, neither of us has been on a cruise ship before, let alone an ocean liner. The QM2 is built for ocean crossings. Stronger and more stable, according to Cunard, than a ship that plies the Ft. Lauderdale-Caribbean beat.

The cab dropped us and our baggage at the dock and for all intents and purpose until we’re on board it’s like going through JFK airport. There was a line—a “queue” I guess—to the ticket agents. They took our bags and issued us multi-purpose cards. It’s a no-cash voyage, and we used the cards as cabin keys and as charge cards and all manner of stuff. They told us, “make sure you don’t lose it.”

OK. Too many preliminaries. Writing this makes me feel like reliving it when all I wanted to was get on the damn boat. Or ship.

And soon we were on board. Like an old, black-and-white movie. Cunard built it that way, but photos and videos don’t do it justice. I expected Fred and Ginger to lace down the circular staircase we passed on our way to the elevator to take us to our cabin.

The cabin. It’s on the fourth deck. It’s nice. Not large, but—. It has a large bed and decent-sized bathroom but not a lot of space. Best of all, a small balcony. It has boards on either side so it is private. There is a railing with a covering so people don’t slip into the ocean. My mind is immediately considering how to take advantage.

The Second Day: Somewhere in the North Atlantic

The QM2’s first “formal” evening was on Monday, our first full day at sea. We’d spent the day trying to familiarize ourselves with where things were and how things worked. We both had our “sea legs,” and enjoyed afternoon tea, it being a British boat—it is the RMS, or Royal Mail Ship, Queen Mary 2 after all.

Perhaps more than anything, though, we were looking forward to formal dining. The ship’s formal evenings are pretty much what they sound like. Men are expected to dress in a tux (or a suit and tie in a crunch) and women a gown or good dress. That’s for the main dining room; people can be more casual for the other restaurants but are asked to limit their wandering around most of the public parts of the ship for the night.

It’s all meant to give a, I don’t know, Roaring 20s or Elegant 30s look. We sat at a table for eight, with two couples our ages and two a decade or so younger. And we danced and we drank and we had the times of our lives. In a sense, it’s the point of the whole trip, and it’s something nearly unheard of on non-Cunard cruise ships.

At night’s end, we returned to our cabin, in a not-entirely-straight line. We don’t go formal often so this was special. When I closed the door I went to open the sliding door to our balcony. The brisk air gave us new life. I asked Diane to keep her gown on. It was a glimmering blue. She wore matching sapphire earrings and necklace, all complementing her blue, drownable eyes. Her left hand had her engagement ring and wedding band and her right a simple sapphire-and-diamond cluster. Her hair is short, but she’d styled it nicely. She was, simply, a dream. Soon she would be my dream.

I kept my tuxedo jacket on and swapped places with her in the bathroom. When I returned, she sidled up to me in that sapphire gown and matching eyes. She put her arms around my neck and pulled my mouth to hers. Like looking at her, kissing her never gets old or tired or boring. More than anything was the moment her tongue invaded my mouth as mine tried to keep up. There was moaning, though I’m not sure whose—probably both of us—completely out of line for a couple married for over thirty-five years with three kids and four grandkids. No, not appropriate at all.

Of course one can’t account for being alone with a beautiful woman in a sapphire gown while wearing a tuxedo. There are dreams. There are fantasies. But sometimes real life is far, far superior.

I felt her ass and realized she’d removed her panties. She smiled when I pulled back with that realization.

“You like?”

“Me like.”

Of course, a problem with a gown is that it’s long. I so much wanted to slip my hands beneath its hem so my fingers could run across her exposed pussy, but I couldn’t.

She smiled again. The cabin has a curved desk near the door to the balcony. Diane turned and reached for my hand, and I took hers. She led me to the desk and turned. She again wrapped her arms around my neck and I again put my hands on her ass. She pulled me down for another kiss, before pushing my face away.

“I hope this is strong enough.”

She bent down and pulled the gown up until its front was above her waist and bounced back onto the desk. There was a moment’s hesitancy, but it seemed strong enough.

“Wait a sec,” I called to her as I ran to the bathroom for a towel. She hopped off the desk and hopped back on once the towel was in place.

“My ass thanks you.”

It was gorgeous. Her pussy. Still in my tux jacket, I knelt before her and between her open legs. It never ceases to amaze me. As with looking at her sleep, looking at her is transcendent. I’ve spent many hours exploring her, always rewarded by her increasing arousal. I ran my tongue gently up her folds. While normally she’d have her hands on my head, she needed them now to maintain her balance on the sliver of the desk that we were taking advantage of.

Her mouth, though, was not so distracted. It was distracted in a completely different way and she was quickly chanting “Oh my God.” Her legs, still in thigh-high stockings, encircled me and her feet with her sapphire heels crossed each other behind my back.

My hands were on either side of her thighs and my shoulders were keeping her thighs apart. I maneuvered so my right hand could, albeit awkwardly, reach her. While my tongue lapped at her opening, my middle finger began bisecting her folds and tapping her clit—it escaped its hood—repeatedly and randomly. I knew how she loved that but she cut me off.

She pushed my face away. I saw magic in her eyes, and I stood so she could undo the clasp of my tuxedo pants. She was wobbly on the desk so I intervened, stepping back, and undid and unzipped my trousers so I could push them down, with my briefs. One of the benefits of being our age, or at least my wife’s, is that one no longer needs birth control, and that night, with my tux jacket still on like fucking James Bond, I moved between her legs. She put her hands on my now-bare ass and pulled me closer—somewhat awkwardly since my pants were around my ankles—before taking her right hand and directing me inside her.

It is in that moment, every time, when time stands still. The perfect moment when I am inside her and there is nothing more certain in the universe than that that is where I am supposed to be. Coupled with her as she places her forearms on my shoulders and uses her hands to pull my mouth again to hers. Yet much as I savor kissing her like that, as I know she savors kissing me, it fades quickly as all I am is a dick penetrating my wife’s pussy.

I hold it. We both like that. Till she breaks the kiss.

“Fuck me.”

And I do, pulling her slightly forward so I have complete access to her. We’re not kids and the pace is slower, more deliberate. But so much more satisfying than those manic early days when we feared her roommate would knock or her parents wouldn’t. It’s like one of those smooth jazzy numbers, choreographed to a soft and stylish saxophone.

It never lasts. Soon the tempo picks up and we both start improvising. I vary the speed of my entry and she curses me for it. At one point when I knew she was almost there, I pull nearly out and hold myself there. The only reason she does not kill me then and there is that we both know from experience how to edge one another and that we always make it to the other side.

But I’m afraid the alcohol and the formal dress were too much. We each came and somehow ended up in our bed. Asleep and naked.

The Third Day: Somewhere in the North Atlantic, Further West

It’s interesting . . . No.

It’s a thrill that you can see the same woman nearly every day for forty years and still find your breath taken away as if each of those days provides a new, pleasant revelation about her. I stood on the small balcony attached to our cabin after our first night on board, a day out of Southampton. There was nothing to be seen except for the blue-green of the North Atlantic on a mid-October morning. We were headed to New York—which we’d left only three days before for the purpose of getting on the ship to come home—and I was caught by the slight roll of the ship and the swish-swish of the water being cut by its bow.

Wearing the plush terry-cloth robe and holding a cup of coffee I’d made in the in-cabin machine. I turned and looked into the cabin. I studied her. I don’t do it often enough. One or the other of us, usually both, are always rushed when we awaken. The kids are grown and gone and their kids are growing but except for the occasional Saturday or Sunday, we don’t linger.

This morning, though, I could study her. She looked much like she did when we met over forty years before. Yes, she treats her hair to defeat the gray, but otherwise she is who she was. Only better.

One benefit of her pale, smooth Irish skin was an aversion to spending time in the sun. Unlike many our ages, now suffering from lines on lines. Her small breasts not suffering from the inexorable pull of gravity. But now, that didn’t matter. She was lightly snoring in the bed, with a sheet over her. I could tell that she was blowing small bubbles through her lips, her variation on snoring. On her stomach with her hands under the pillow, she slowly and slightly rose-and-fell with each breath.

Soon she was up and we were dressed and ready for our second full day aboard.

*    *    *    *

Is it ever not embarrassing to leave your cabin to go to breakfast after a night of blow-the-roof-off-the-joint sex and run smack into the couple in the cabin on the other side of the wall on which your wife hit her head one or two times?

It’s not when your sixty-one and your wife thinks you’re a—

“Get that smirk off your face before I do it for you.”

A wife who knows what you’re thinking before you do.

But even with the smirk gone, there was a spring in my step.

Still. I was sixty-one and she was sixty and, well, we both knew we had to space things. In a sense, we both felt some relief after that Monday-night-session because it meant we could spend two, maybe three days not thinking about whether we’d be having sex that night. Or at least not obsessively. After all, we were on an ocean liner with all manner of things to keep us busy, an ocean liner full of people and what seemed like ten crew members for each passenger.

Still, the more people there were, the less we noticed them. The experience was that magical. It’s designed to be a holiday and while there were events around-the-clock, we spent an inordinate share of our time lounging next to one another. On the deck—generally to starboard to avoid the sun, from the sky and bouncing off the sea.

In the extensive library. Which had an almost gentlemen’s club feel, or at least what I imagined a gentlemen’s club would feel like. And naps in our cabin. Just naps. Our cabin was on the port side so we got sun as we traveled west, and could open the door to the balcony slightly to hear the water passing beneath and beside the hull as we held each other, generally me spooning Diane, as we nodded off.

The Fourth Day: Still At Sea

My good intentions, however, did not make it to dinnertime on Wednesday. We were napping, as old people do in the afternoon. I was spooning Diane. We were both on our left side and neither of us was asleep. Fully clothed. I felt her right hand pull mine down her front, until it was at her pussy, albeit outside her slacks and panties. I unsnapped and unzipped the former and put my hand through the waistband of the latter. What I said about the frailty of age still prevailed, but that afternoon was one of those small sessions. No headbanging. No “Oh my God”s. Just me slowing rubbing her folds and inserting one finger then two more inside her as she gripped my hand to hold it to her.

Neither of us moved or spoke except for my fingers, held by her hand. I felt her hips roll slightly and her breath shorten with her arousal. Until she came. It was a simple, intimate orgasm, the type only two people as familiar with the other’s body as with their own.

I kissed her on the back of the neck and heard her “thank you” as she pulled my hand to her lips and kissed it, then licking my fingers clean. She could, I’m sure, feel how hard I was, although I wore trousers. It couldn’t be hidden had I wanted it to be. But I told her I was fine. And I was. And then she fell into a post-orgasm nap, and I continued to hold her as I too fell asleep.

The Fifth Day: Past Midway

In theory, the QM2 can make the crossing in four days. But it takes its time so passengers can enjoy it. And themselves. But when we got up on Thursday, our fourth full day, our luck had changed. We’d hit a North Atlantic storm, and the seas were rough. Fortunately, our cabin was about halfway between the bow and the stern, so the rocking was not as pronounced as it was elsewhere. What had been routine on Wednesday became an adventure twenty-four hours later.

We braved the deck briefly, stopping to look at the Atlantic’s swells, and white caps on passing waves. We’d packed, as suggested, rain slickers, and feeling Ahab-like we wore them to breakfast. The restaurant, as with the rest of the ship we explored, was half-empty. Fortunately neither Diane nor I suffered seasickness, but we stuck to eggs and toast and coffee, lest we tempt the gods.

Things calmed considerably by early afternoon, and the Captain assured us that the storm was past and it looked like we’d have clear sailing into New York. All was calm by the time dinner rolled around. It was another formal dinner. Again I was in my tux and Diane was in her gown. This time we sat at an even larger table, for twelve, including two of the couples from the prior formal night and one we’d met at breakfast. This time we decided to dance. Fred and Ginger we’re not. But we didn’t care. I suggested we take in a post-dance show, but she said she had a surprise for me. “Back in the cabin.”

Which is why she was on her knees and I was in a chair on the balcony wearing only my tuxedo shirt and tie. She, I should mention, was naked, and kneeling on a towel. She laughed when she had me where she wanted me.

“Damn right you’re ‘fine,’” said a moment before her lips encircled the head of my dick. It was cold but it was the most sensuous moment we’d shared. A gorgeous naked woman worshipping my dick as a wind whistled by the ship and the wave kissed the hull of a huge ocean liner that might as well have been empty for all we cared.

Soon she’d engulfed all of me. We both knew I couldn’t last. First, of course, because of the setting and the build-up and that she was worshiping my dick. Second because we were getting cold. Fortunately for both of us, I did not last long. She squeezed my balls and I shortly said I was coming. She pulled her mouth from me, and I shot over her tits and chest. Four bursts.

I hadn’t recovered when I saw her great ass shooting through the door into the cabin and then into the bathroom. By the time I got inside, the shower was heating up. I stripped myself of my shirt and tie as quickly as I could once the balcony door was shut. By the time I got inside the bathroom, she was being warmed by the shower’s cascading water.

It was a small shower, with a glass door and not a lot of room. I opened the door and joined her. She was covering her chest with soap and my cum was soon circling the drain harmlessly. I turned her so I was behind her, the water flowing off her head and down her front. I ran my right hand around her middle before moving it to her pussy. This time I went straight inside her with three fingers. She was wet from a combination of her arousal for what she’d done to me and from the shower itself.

I rotated my hand so I could claw her. Her hands were against the shower tiles, and my left hand circled her, below her arms, and found her left tit. I maintained my balance by leaning against her upper back, so we were both largely supported by her hands on the wall.

It didn’t take long for her either. I knew her eyes were shut as her hips starting rotating rhythmically and I felt her knees begin to buckle slightly. I stepped back so I could remove my weight from her back and my left hand went from caressing her tit and squeezing its nipple to stabilizing her by wrapping it around her waist. Her head began to rock in sync with her hips, waves emanating from what she was feeling in her pussy.

With me holding her, she could move her right hand from the wall to her clit, and she started rubbing it fast. As soon as her finger touched her there, her body’s motions were magnified and I could feel the tsunami beginning to course through her. Her finger was rubbing faster and faster as I tried to control my own fingers inside her, all while securing her as her knees increased their bend.

Then her body stopped moving, except for her finger. Suddenly she pulled that away and exploded, her “oh my God”s echoing in the small space. I’d slowed my hands’ movement, almost caressing the inside of her pussy until her right hand pushed mine out of her, and I used it to hold her tighter as she came down, removing her own left hand from the shower wall.

Her breath was short. I don’t know how long we’d been there but the water was still warm. We were both completely spent. We gave ourselves a final rinsing, turned the shower off, and dried off with the plush towels that Cunard had kindly provided.

After we took turns brushing our teeth and otherwise preparing for bed, we lay next to each other. And as with looking at her first thing in the morning after all these years, saying “goodnight” and hearing her say “goodnight” remains the perfect end to my day.

The Sixth Day: Off Greenland. Maybe?

We were joined at breakfast on Friday by one of the couples we’d met the night before. They were Brits and would be flying back to London after a few days in New York. Sally and Bill. About our age. He was a bit taller than me and had a full head of gray hair. I’d gotten a little light on top, with a bald spot that got bigger and bigger every time the barber held a mirror to it.

Sally was an inch or two taller than Diane and was a bit larger on top. Her hips were wider and her hair was light brown with a tint of red. It dangled below her shoulders.

Unbeknownst to me, Diane and Sally had spoken alone in the Ladies’ Room during dinner and had met on the second day of the trip. Unbeknownst to me, Bill and I were among the topics of their conversations. This I learned after the breakfast, which was intended as a getting-to-know-your-husband thing.

As Diane and I left, we headed for a walk on the deck.

“What do you think of Sally?”

I thought she was quite attractive, but didn’t dare think more. Or say that.

“She seemed nice.”

“Nice? Tell the truth. Would you like to fuck her?”

Now Diane had never said something like this in the forty years we’d been together. (If you’re wondering, we’ve been together for forty years, but have been married for just over thirty-five.)

I stopped.

“What?”

“It’s a simple question. Would you like to fuck her? I’d like Bill to fuck me.”

This was holy-shit time. I mean, of course I’d like to fuck her. She was a very attractive Brit with nice eyes and big tits.

Diane pulled me to the side.

“Look. This is the one chance we’ll have in our lives to explore sex with someone else. Free and clear. No commitment. No responsibilities. Haven’t you ever thought what it would be like to be inside a woman who wasn’t me?”

I was stunned, but not unhappy with where she was going.

“I know I have. Not often. But what would another man’s dick inside me feel like? What would his lips feel like on mine? I don’t know how it came up the second time I spoke with Sally. She assured me that they’re not swingers. Just that she was at the age, where I am, of wondering. Not what could have been. Just what it would feel like.”

We’d reached the door to one of the ship’s coffee places and went in. I needed the pause to get my head together. We sat at a small table and talked.

Which explains why I was knocking on Sally and Bill’s cabin door on the deck above ours at 2 o’clock that afternoon. I . . . We had until 4.

I was in a pair of shorts and a polo shirt with slip-ons. The door was answered before I finished knocking. The cabin seemed empty, but Sally closed the door after I’d walked in. She was naked. Gloriously naked. The first naked woman other than my wife I’d seen in the flesh in forty years.

I was instantly hard.

“One of us is very overdressed.”

I was soon naked and I turned to her. She glanced down.

“And someone is very happy to see me.”

She walked up to me and standing in the middle of the cabin she kissed me, her right hand roaming across my dick. With those touches, on my lips and on my dick, all doubts, all concerns vanished. We became animals. Feral, horny animals.

I thought she would push me down on the bed. She’d pulled the covers aside. But she had a far better idea. She led me to the balcony. I was hypnotized by her ass. And she knew it.

She bent across the railing so her shoulders were on it. I saw she’d placed several towels on the floor. For my knees. Without a word, she spread her legs. I knelt behind and beneath her. My hands spread her ass cheeks. I could see her pussy lips. I could see her anus. The former was damp. The latter was dry. I involuntarily licked my lips.

I began licking her pussy and she began to moan. I ran my tongue along her perineum and then began to rim her. I’d never done that with Diane, but it was clear that Sally wanted it and thus I wanted it. Her hips were rocking slightly as my tongue returned to her pussy. I made my tongue into a tube and darted it inside her and out as well as I could. Her rocking was increased.

“In. Don’t worry. I’m post-menopausal.”

I stood, more slowly and carefully than I would have had I been forty years younger, and moved closer. I kicked the towels away and was almost to her. Her arms were occupied in holding her to the railing. I used my right hand to guide me to her hole and slowly pushed in. It was glorious. As with Diane? No. That was perfection. This was just lust, the realization of countless jerking-off sessions.

Soon we were fucking. Like rabbits we were fucking. A bit of noise from people walking on the decks cascaded down but mostly it was the sound of the wind and the Atlantic Ocean somewhere off the coast of Newfoundland. Maybe Greenland. A bit of wind rustled her hair as her head reached out over the sea. Assuming Cunard had designed the railing for just this sort of mid-crossing activity, I increased the tempo and intensity of my penetration. My own hands grasped her hips until not long after we started I couldn’t stop myself.

“I’m coming. Fuck, I’m coming.”

“Fill me with your seed. Mate with me.”

In my own zone, I’d failed to appreciate that she too had lost a sense of where she was. Where we were. She was in her own special space, savoring our fornication. Diane told me that Sally said she too had only her husband as her lover in their twenty-eight years of marriage. That she and Bill were like Diane and me. Stealing these two hours out of our lives to do something we might have thought of doing but never would have done without all of our agreements. That it was only two hours from our lives, and from our marriages.

I could barely hear Sally, what with the wind and the ship’s creaking. But I could feel Sally as she trembled below me. As I came it triggered her own intense orgasm, her ass visibly shaking against my hands.

When we were done, I backed away. She pushed from the railing and turned and collapsed, her back against it.

I sat next to her. Suddenly she turned her head to mine and bent over to kiss my lips.

“That was special. I’ll always remember it. And you.” She smiled, reaching for my flaccid dick, several drops on its head. She addressed it. “And you.”

She leaned back against the railing and our hands met.

“What you said. Though, in fairness, I never got to know your guys,” said as I reached around to caress her right tit.

Over the next hour-and-a-half, I became quite acquainted with her right tit and just as knowledgeable of her left. We’d blown through our fucking-on-the-balcony allotment so spent the rest of the time in her—their—bed. Best of all was when I was atop Sally and she guided me into her pussy. I slowly lowered myself to her and we slowly and deliberately made love. It was, as the Brits might say, “lovely.” She was not Diane. But she was sweet and beautiful and kind and we made love. Both knowing that it was the only time we would ever do so to a person we did not love as I loved Diane and she loved Bill.

When we were done and she’d had her third—I’d eaten her out for the second—and I my second—she went down on me but only to harden me for intercourse—orgasms, it was 3:45. I think we both regretted that we had so little time. We were on our back on the bed, our hands clasping. And I spoke of Diane and she spoke of Bill and we both felt something was missing. It was a moment when we realized we’d never do or want to do such a thing, sleep with someone else, again.

The four of us agreed to meet in one of the lounges at 4:15. Sally and I got there first. I liked her. Not as a body. I felt comfortable with her, just talking. I could understand why Diane had taken the leap with her. I saw Diane and Bill approach a couple of minutes after we were there. They both looked happy with themselves and with each other. I felt a little uncomfortable and embarrassed and I’m sure Bill did too. More than anything about having enjoyed the other’s wife. Physically, sexually enjoyed the other’s wife.

Sally and I got up as they approached, and Bill and I went to get coffees for everyone.

“I hope you’re OK with what happened.” That was Bill.

“Same for you.” As we waited for our coffees I said, “She was . . . wonderful. But she’s not Diane.”

“I feel the same. Any regrets?”

The barista handed us the four coffees, and we carried them to the counter for milk and sugar. When we put them down, I said, “It’s something I’ll always have, you know? Cherish maybe. But it was a one-off with my wife’s permission. I think Sally liked it, but I think she feels the same way. I’m great in bed. But I’m not you.”

Bill laughed. “You know. Sally mentioned the possibility of doing this when we booked the trip. And we agreed, but only if we could find a couple that we’d think we’d like and that was so into each other than the sex with someone else wouldn’t hurt their marriage. She mentioned you two the night she met Diane. She was like, ‘I found them.’”

We were blocking the counter and the girls were likely wondering what was taking us so long so we put the appropriate milk and sugar in and stepped to the side for a moment.

I told Bill, “It’ll take some processing and talking with Diane, but I’m glad we did it. All of us.”

With that, we went to rejoin our wives.

We sat with Bill and Sally for most of our remaining meals, including the final formal night. We went to a show with them and I spent time with Bill as Diane did with Sally. And, of course, Diane spoke about it. Indeed, it was the main topic of discussion when she and I returned to our cabin after we’d both fucked other people.

“It was nice. Different. I hate to say it, but he reminded me of you. It was all about me. What I wanted. What I felt. He’d have spent the whole time . . . eating me if I let him. But I couldn’t resist having him . . . fuck me as I leaned against the balcony. That—”

“That was the first thing Sally and I did.”

“Was she naked when you got there?”

“Were you when Bill did? Yeah, she was. She led me straight to the balcony. Neither of us lasted long.”

“What a slut.” She laughed. “I bet I came before she did.” She laughed again. “Good thing we were on different sides of the ship. Or we would have seen, maybe heard, each other come.”

She turned to me. “Let’s not talk about the specifics. I’ll just say I loved Bill . . . fucking and eating me and I enjoyed giving him head but in the end enjoyable as it was it wasn’t you.”

“Regrets?”

She thought. “Not yet. I doubt I will.”

“Me neither.”

Her hand ran across the light stubble on my cheek. “He was good but I will never compare him to you. You are my husband and my lover and he was just a friend and a . . . an afternoon. A nice even wonderful afternoon. Two hours. But no more.”

She kissed me, initially softly but then with an increasing fever. Before I knew it she’d rolled on top of me. Her lips moved to my ear, “Do you have one more in you?” and she’d pulled her nightie up and I’d pulled my pajamas down and she straddled me. The sight of her nakedness was enough to get my sixty-one-year-old dick hard. Her eyes locked on mine as she lowered herself on me. I sensed a hint of evil in her, knowing as she did that my prior “exertions” would delay my coming. She’d have plenty of time to play with me.

And play she did. It was in those moments that our afternoon with Sally and Bill became what it still is, an afternoon of exploration of a different world but a world in which neither of us resided and in which neither of us wanted to reside.

The Seventh Day: Almost Home

We made love one more time after that extended late-night session. It was again the formal evening, the next night. We sat at a table-for-four with Bill and Sally. I enjoyed dancing with her, knowing every contour beneath her burgundy gown. Allowing her to feel my innocent erection as we held each other. We were sexual beings and we’d shared an intimacy. She was and remains someone special to me and we both know we are sexually attracted to one another. But we both know, as I’m sure is the case with Diane and Bill, that it is an attraction never again to be fulfilled and that none of the four of us want to be anything but a fond memory.

That night when Diane and I returned to our cabin, we stripped for each other slowly. The bed had been turned down while we were at dinner and walking the deck with Bill and Sally. When we were both naked, and the balcony door was open and we could hear the breeze and the waves, we got into our bed and made love briefly. Neither of lasted long. Soon we were fucking. Hard, rollicking fucking, positions shifting. After I came while I was fucking her doggie-style—she came too—she gave me a respite before going down on me, demanding that I get hard because she “am not fucking through with you.”

And she wasn’t. I’d come twice that afternoon with Sally and once later that day. How I came once let alone twice more the next evening remains a mystery. Perhaps a miracle. But after Diane got me hard again with her mouth, she lay on her back. She lifted her legs up to expose all of herself to me. Before I entered her, she asked me to lick her ass. Something I’d never done to her, though I did it briefly with Sally. I wondered, but never asked, if she’d crossed that line with Bill as I had with Sally, but after only a few strokes with my tongue she said, “Fuck me” and I did.

The Start of the Eighth Day: Back in the USA

On Saturday, our final night, we set the alarm for five-thirty. It’s a tradition on the QM2. The ship enters New York Harbor before dawn. A Sandy Hook Pilot—Sandy Hook is a peninsula that juts into the Atlantic—comes aboard on a launch from Staten Island. The pilots guide ships out and guide ships in. It’s a tricky harbor to navigate, particularly with the Verrazano Bridge. Indeed, the funnel of the ship is designed so that at high tide in New York it can go under the highest point of that Bridge, with about ten meters to spare.

We were not coming in at high tide, so there was no danger of hitting the Bridge. But it is a spectacular sight as the QM2 approaches our city. The decks are lined with others awaiting the Bridge and then the iconic view of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan.

Bill and Sally had arranged to meet us and we were together amidships on the port, or left, side. It would let us see the Statue. The ship was lit up, almost like something from the Vegas Strip. We saw the lights on the Bridge and on the cars and trucks crossing to Brooklyn from Staten Island in the pre-dawn hours; I wondered where people were going so early.

After we stared at the underbelly of the Bridge, all eyes turned to the Statue, lit up with the green of her copper skin resplendent. Then lower Manhattan. We’d only been away for just over a week, but it is always a joy to return. By the time the ship docked at the Cunard terminal in Brooklyn, it was almost daylight. We disembarked—one of those things you learn to say on board—and got a cab home.

Bill and Sally were staying in midtown for a few days before themselves heading home. We spent the next day with them. They’d been to New York once before, when they were in their thirties. They commented on how much it had changed and how little. We, of course, enjoy playing the tour guide.

They were flying out late on Wednesday from JFK. That way they’d get into London after dawn and would be home by noon. We had a final dinner with them at a nice place near where Diane and I first lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The dinner had its awkward moments but we all had a wonderful time and Diane and I said our goodbyes when they caught a cab at about eight.

*    *    *    *

While I can write of that trip as if it were yesterday and we were just home from hugging and kissing Bill and Sally goodbye as they headed to their home, it was four years ago. I think of those hours with Sally often, probably too often. My adventure. Diane admits to doing the same about Bill. I won’t say it strengthened our marriage because it always was, and remains, strong. But it did not weaken it. We all knew it was something worth doing and we all knew our marriages were strong enough to withstand it. And we were all right.

We see Bill and Sally every fall. We take advantage of their hospitality to go to London and they do the same to come to New York. We’ve all aged a bit, but Bill is as handsome and Sally as beautiful as they then were, if a little slower. Last time they visited Bill laughed that he’d need four hours to do what he did with Diane in two. “If I’m lucky.”

To which Diane added, “you mean if I’m lucky.” And we clinked wine glasses. It is not a subject we avoid. It’s part of our shared experiences. Like memories of something done years before. We all tease one another more than is appropriate but are not tempted to do anything but tease.

Still. It is our secret. Our kids have met Bill and Sally and we’ve met theirs. In the end, they’ve become part of our family. And we of theirs.