A Housewife's Panties

"Yes, Lora, you do," I replied as I slid the panties into my suitcase.

CHAPTER 4

I never saw Lora after that day. I do not know if she is even now alive, but if so, she would be close to 80. As for Denise and me, our children are now grown, with careers and kids of their own. Denise has been the dream wife, still fit and sexy even in her late 50s. She spreads her thighs for me as eagerly now as on our wedding night. My male friends, with both words and glances, have told me a thousand times what a lucky bastard I am to have had a wife like her. Denise and I have traveled the world together; I have showered gifts on her, and have truthfully told her that I love her very much. I hope it has been enough.

But sometimes sleep does not come, and I sit in my study late at night, staring into the flames of the gas fireplace there. My college diploma, now with two pairs of panties hidden in the back, still hangs on the wall nearby. It has been years, though, since the panties were put to use. Often I reflect instead on those last moments that I spent with Lora on that long-ago day. I had enjoyed her to the fullest, eaten lunch, and then showered and was getting dressed. Like any housewife fussing over her husband, she straightened my tie and brushed lint from my suit.

Then she spoke. "Now, Jack, you've had me every way a man can have a woman. And I don't mind saying that it was just about the best sex I've ever had. But this is the end of it. I don't ever want to see you or hear from you again. Don't even try to call or write. Do you understand me?"

"No, I don't!"

"The thing is," she said sternly, "you've now got young'uns of your own, and a pretty wife. It's a full time job for a man, just being a father and husband. Now, these past three days, I've given you everything I have to offer. There's nothing left of me that you haven't already had. So now I'm asking you to devote yourself to the family that needs you." She leaned up and kissed me for the last time. "That's what I want. Will you do it for me?"

I paused, slowly realizing the truth in her words. "Yes Ma'm, I'll do it."

And so the mounted diploma and its hidden treasure now remind me of the great irony of my existence: I have enjoyed a long satisfying life with Denise, the most charming and sensuous woman a man could ever hope for. But years before I met her, an ordinary housewife twenty years my senior captured my heart. And as long as I live, part of my heart will belong to her. To Lora.