Burning Passion

"Jan! Jan, over here please." Gwen Tolliver bounced up and down in her attempt the attract notice of her best-selling author. She grasped Jan's elbow and lead her to the photographers area. "The photographers would like to take some photos of you and the awards."

"Congratulations again, who'd have thought we'd end up here? I hope you appreciate that you truly do deserve this. Let's look at you and make sure everything's in place." Gwen fussed with Jan's appearance and gave her an appreciative wink. "You look great…I have to ask, have you had "work" done. I mean you are just glowing, you look spectacular. I know, you have some young stud stashed in that room next to your suite – nothing like the stamina of a hot young man. Eh Jan…Jan?"

Jan didn't answer her long-time friend and editor. Jan wasn't just miles away, she was years away –20 years away to be specific. Twenty years ago Jan had a torrid affair with a man sixteen years her junior. The affair – her one and only infidelity - transformed her view of herself as a woman.

Twenty one years ago Jan Matheson was dying. Outwardly she was in great shape for a woman facing forty. Inwardly though, she was dying, the three great tracks of her life; wife, mother, and teacher, seemed to be headed for dead-ends.

Maybe that was an exaggeration, she loved her husband Matt and knew that he loved her, but the flame of their love seemed to be no more than a glowing ember. Their sex life had become dull and routine.

She loved her kids too. But as young teens, they no longer looked to her for advice. In fact, they seemed to be acting more and more like the kids she'd been teaching for years. Hovering somewhere between dismissive and disrespectful.

And then there was "The Call." Growing within her was the desire to write. She felt as if she was pregnant with stories that would die if she didn't give birth to them. Her "at home" efforts were, in her eyes pathetic. Incredibly, it was her husband Matt who suggested she looked at taking a class or two at the local college.

That one semester, led to her seek admission to a year long Master's writing course in Iowa. She applied with the idea that to be accepted would be validation enough. How could she leave her husband, family and career for a year? Amazingly, it was at Matt's insistence again – "we can afford it now, but once tuition for the kids begins…so it's now or never Jan."

She decided on "now and enrolled, flew West and found herself in the greatest conundrum of her life. While the school work was exciting and stimulating, the separation from her family was heart-rending. She was homesick beyond belief. Every week away seemed more and more difficult to bear. She said as much in the regular phone calls to her family. Finally, she couldn't stand it any longer and flew home for the weekend.

Her first weekend back at home Jan found Matt and the kids perfectly capable of carrying on without her. The house was clean, meals prepared, sports events attended. The day-to-day activities of her home had continued unaffected by her absence. It was the same in her marital bed.

Simply put, Jan was itching to be fucked. Had been for the last couple of years actually. How was it possible that Matt did not sense her physical need for him? How could he not smell her near constant state of arousal? Didn't her kiss at the airport tell him anything? She had practically devoured his mouth!

Matt's response, "How many drinks on the plane did you have?"

After being politely ignored Friday night, Jan had gone shopping at the mall the next day. She walked by Victoria's Secret three times before finally going inside. The young clerk (she seemed about the same age as the college students back in Iowa; the same effortless sexiness) was very attentive and helpful. Jan had spent hours finding the perfect combination of peignoir, bra, garter belt and panties. She was planning an evening of seduction.

Matt was planning an evening with the family. He and the kids returned home that afternoon with dinner plans already made. The team bar-b-q lasted from the afternoon to late at night. Matt had drunk freely and by the time they got home, he was too exhausted and she too angry for sex.

Jan wanted to be so thoroughly missed that Matt would not be able to control himself. After no sex Saturday, Matt went golfing Sunday and then they went to dinner at his parent's house. That night Matt made love to her. It was nice and all, but sadly unfulfilling. Jan had returned the to school the next morning. The lingerie sat unused in a box in her closet.

That week she poured her loneliness into her writing assignment. It was chosen by the teacher as the best effort in class so far. After class she was congratulated by her fellow writers. The validation of her peers turned her attention to her fellow students, and she began to socialize with them. That's how it began with Jake. He praised her writing. He expressed amazement that she had teenaged children. She reveled in the attention. He asked her to edit a story he'd written.

It was a blisteringly hot September evening that had Jake showing up at her apartment with his story in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. The Chardonnay was perfectly chilled. The story was hot - border line pornographic – the writing was mediocre, but the detail incredibly explicit. The wine was drunk as they argued sentence structure and grammar.

Jan kept returning to his seemingly endless references to the size of the protagonists penis, "If you're going to refer to it again and again, at least make it realistic. The world in not filled with men with twelve inch penis'."

Jake had simply stood, pulled his T-shirt over his head and pushed his shorts down to his ankles. A great lump of flesh dangled before her. Jake challenged and chided her to touch it, to see its true size.

Jake always teased her after that night that he "had her from the moment she made him erect." Her touch became a stroking. Her stroking became a need for release. Her need for release became her infidelity.

That scene was repeated the next night and the next after that. Jake fucked her with abandoned. There were no words of endearment. There was no cuddling afterward: just pure, hard fucking. He fucked her Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night.

That Friday Jan was due to fly home. Jake drove her to the airport, kissed her as she got out of his car, and gave her an envelope telling to her to read it on the plane before she got home.

The envelope contained a letter, detailing their exploits of the previous week, and promising delights for the week to come. Jan realized she would not, could not, turn Jake away if he did show up upon her return. What surprised her was her reaction to seeing Matt. She practically raped him in the airport parking lot. There was no guilt involved (well maybe a little) it was lust' impure and simple. She was on fire with lust.

The affair with Jake continued unabated throughout her entire year at Iowa. Her returns home were likewise – she made sure to leave Matt exhausted but smiling. And the letters from Jake continued, filled with the details of their time together – sordid tales of lust and abandon.

It reached a crescendo on the day she graduated. Matt and the kids had flown out to attend; she insisted that they meet her at the event site claiming not enough room at her small apartment. She stood proudly when the masters' graduates were introduced, she beamed when her academic honors were announced, and she felt deliciously wicked as she received her diploma with her lover's cum leaking freely from her freshly fucked cunt and ass.

That feeling was fleeting at best. One moment she was feeling the absolute empowerment of a woman in complete control of her life, her body, and her sexuality. The next she realized just how out of control her life had become.

She saw Matt standing before her. He was holding a beautiful red typewriter, his graduation gift to her. Jan had been rocked to the very core of her being. Matt had made this all possible. Matt had supported her all along, encouraged her, and now rewarded her for her hard work.

Matt had insisted that she have her own apartment to have time to herself to devote to her writing. An apartment she had refused to let him see because her lover had spent the night and fucked her that very morning.

She stood before he loving husband with her lover's cum dripping down the length of her legs; the guilt nearly brought her to her knees. Jan was devastated and tears poured down her cheeks. She wanted nothing more then to shower and go home. She never saw or had any contact with Jake again.

Everything in her apartment was quickly packed and shipped home. It was only when she unpacked the boxes that she realized she had packed Jake's letters – all of them. She cried herself sick and took to her bed. Matt's gentle care only made her feel worse.

"Jan. Earth to Jan." Gwen smiled as she waved a hand in front of Jan's face. "The photographer's are ready for you now. A penny for your thoughts Jan, just a moment ago I would have said they were X-rated. Then you looked so sad."

"Oh sorry Gwen. It's nothing, nothing at all." Jan smiled at Gwen and posed with her awards as the photographers requested that she look this way or that. 'A penny for your thoughts, if they aren't X-rated.' Jan wondered why she never destroyed Jake's letters. They were certainly X-rated. She couldn't recall the number of times she had them in hand ready to burn or shred them. Yet she never did. Instead, she carefully hid them beneath her ever-present open ream of heavy writing paper. Paper she kept beside her beloved typewriter Red.

God she had been such a fool. She could smile at her foolishness now. A year ago it was an Act of God that nearly ended her marriage. She was on a book signing tour when a large earthquake rocked their California home. Both of their kids had chosen colleges in California. Her firstbestseller had infused their family income and she and Matt had moved from the Midwest to just north of LA.

Once again, Jake's letters moved with them.

Jan smiled at the affect the earthquake wrought in her marriage. She'd used the metaphor dozen's of times in her romance novels. The real-life effect was anything but romantic. She couldn't even blame Matt for snooping about. She had asked him to check on her writing cottage. The fact that Jake's letters were there never entered her mind.

Jake's letters. She had done things for and with him that she would never have considered with Matt. He was her husband, there were expectations, and there were limits. With Jake there had been none. She had given her body fully and completely to him. There was never a question of love. Jake was about sex and desire – nothing more. The letter's contained it all in Jake's lurid attention to detail style. It was all there written in Jake's masculine hand on that ridiculous cheap recycled paper he had used.

And there, amidst the blizzard of her scattered journal pages, Matt had seen Jake's letters. There Matt read Jake's letters. And there, in Jan's "sacred" writing space, Matt had lifted up her beloved Red; the very typewriter that he had given her upon her graduation. The typewriter she had used to write each and every manuscript. Matt lifted Red high and smashed it to the floor, again and again, until Red was destroyed.

Matt never gave her the slightest hint that anything was wrong, other then inform her Red was broken. Only when Jan returned home and began to clean her office did she see what papers lay beneath the smashed machine – Jake's letters. She had sat on the floor and cried. Matt knew! Great wracking sobs of sorrow. Matt knew! And a growing chill of fear – oh my god Matt knows!

It had taken her hours to compose her self, prepare herself, and steel herself. With Red's platen and a small bookstand she had walked slowly to the main house. The bookstand was set on the mantle and Red's platen was placed carefully there.

Jan delivered a short mea culpa; after all it had been nearly twenty years. Hadn't she proved to Matt beyond a shadow of a doubt that she loved him? She cried for the pain she had caused and moved into Matt's comforting embrace. At the time she thought that it was all going better then she'd expected. She was surprised that she was even thinking about a storyline similar to this situation. She smiled at her good fortune. She knew her Matt.

Matt had smiled and nodded as she spoke, then embraced her and her need. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled a red handkerchief out – or so she thought at first. Matt had carefully draped the red material over the bookstand – only then was it obvious what they were, Red silk panties!

And then Matt had spoken that crap about questioning the passion in their marriage and finding it down the street? Jan had gone from apologetic to apoplectic in the beat of her heart. She exploded in fury at his infidelity, this petty act of revenge. How dare he treat their marriage in such a cavalier fashion? The words burned in her memory.

"Mine doesn't even compare with yours – one night versus an entire year? Tell me how yours is excusable and mine is not?" He had spoken those words so easily.

"I am not excusing what I did! I am not denying that I made a mistake. A serious, terrible mistake. I was in a crisis. I wasn't sure what to do or where to turn. I felt that call to write. I knew I had to do something. You supported my choice."

"I still do. But I did not and do not and will not support you fucking around behind my back. I'm supposed to believe that this man was the only one? Please Jan. Give me a little more credit then that."

"Matt. I made a mistake. I have done everything in my power to make amends. How dare you accuse me of having other lovers? I'm admitting I was wrong. I am sorry for the pain I've cause. But I promise you that it was just this one time – just Iowa. You have to believe me."

"I have to believe you – since when? What happens when the next bit of evidence shows up - hmm? What's next Jan, photos, videos, some fellow writer's tell-all biography, "Jan Matheson was my slut. She did whatever I wanted her to do…with whoever and whenever I wanted her to."

Jan had actually tried to slap Matt's face. The fight went downhill from there; ending due to exhaustion. The only resolution found Matt moving his things out of their bedroom. A chill settled into the house and their marriage. Matt and Jan barely spoke to one another.

They were at an impasse and by that summer it seemed all over but the paper work. Then Matt's younger brother Frank insisted on Matt joining him on a three-week long camping trip – guys only. Jan was glad to have him out of the house- at first. By the end of the first week she was desperate to see him. Upon his return, Jan was determined to offer him everything he wanted to stay with her. She wanted him desperately in her life.

Matt returned a transformed man. She saw the change as he walked through the front door. He just walked right up to her and kissed her fiercely. "Do you want me for your husband?" His grip was strong, his gaze intense.

"Yes – more than anything. I'll give up everything for you."

She surrendered to him – body and soul.

He took her where they stood, right there in the foyer of their house. With the front door slightly ajar, he stripped her and fucked her against the wall. She had collapsed from her orgasm to the marble tile. It was cold beneath her back as Matt fucked her with an unrelenting power and authority to her second orgasm.

He pulled out and ejaculated on her face and chest – "I'm marking you as my woman." Then he carried her to their bathroom, washed her thoroughly and repeated his performance – only this time he made slow, sweet love to her. Jan cried tears of joy that night.

The new Matt was confident, assertive and incredibly sexy. The new Matt was also apologetic, conciliatory and willing to try and preserve their marriage. The result was a renewal and a transformation of their life together.

Jan smiled as the cameras flashed. Matt never talked much about his camping trip with his brother and she didn't ask. It was only later that Frank's wife said that they had gone canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, near Lake Superior. Jan intended to suggest that Frank and Matt make it an annual event.

"Thanks Jan and congratulations." The photographers melted away and Gwen was once again by Jan's side.

"Say do you remember Jacob Wintergarten? He was in our writing class at Iowa: tall, dark, intense, opinionated, arrogant. Come on you must remember him, the one who thought he was God's gift to women. The only thing bigger than his ego was his dick, and he had about the biggest ego I've ever encountered."

"What was that Gwen?"

"Biggest dick too. God, I can't believe I ever fell for his line of bullshit. What a bastard. He would show up at my door on a Friday night with a bottle of wine and a hard on. He's leave Sunday evening with empty balls and me too sore to sit, shit, or walk."

"Fridays? Jake…Jacob and you were…?"

"Not just me, I know at least two other women he was screwing while we were in school. Well, after graduation he got a teaching job in Minnesota. No doubt screwing every co-ed he could get his hands on.

"Anyway, he got a job teaching Freshman English, Lord's knows his writing skills were mediocre at best, and he just faded slowly into the Northern Lights. Didn't publish anything notable, just enough to get tenure. Or so I thought.

"About two years ago, I get an excerpt,hand-written on tnhis crappy recycled paper, from a novel, mine you. I read it – I'm amazed. It was like reading a lost Hemingway. I'm told that it's part of a three novel set, written by some English professor from some University of Nowhere, and it's being shopped around. Guess who the author is, oh you've already figured it out – our very own Jacob Wintergarten. It turns out that he had a cabin up on some lake and he'd spent a lot of time writing.

"The buzz in New York was intense. Even Hollywood was interested – it was very sexy stuff. A bidding war started and everything pointed towards Jakey-boy landing a seven figure deal and matching bonus for publishing and movie rights. And then at the height of it all – poof."

"Poof? What do you mean…poof?"

"Poof." Gwen pursed her lips and blew. "All gone – everything, and I mean everything – gone. Seems that Jake had his one and only copy of this brilliant work at his cabin up in - oh I just can't recall where his cabin was – Bouncy Walrus, or Bounding…"

"Boundary Waters?" Jan's interrom curious to anxious.

"Yes, that's it. He had everything at his place in the Boundary Waters Area. According to the story I've heard… well, it's classic Jake. He was entertaining some young thing, when two guys dressed in black show up. God, you can't write this kind of stiff, nobody would believe you. These guys pull Jake and his lady friend out of the cabin and tie them naked to a tree.

"Oh my God!"

"Oh, it gets better Jan. Then the guys burned the place and everything in it…"

"NO!"

"Yes! Everything destroyed…except for one tiny item."

"Everything? Even his manuscript?" Jan felt her stomach tighten.

"EVERYTHING! And more than just the manuscript, turns out Jake had quite the book and art collection there. He had invested most of his income in books and art – all gone. Nothing left but a pile of ash."

"As the fire started to roar inside the cabin, one of the guys in black walked up to Jake and threw something at his feet. The guy looks Jake square in the eye and says, "I hope she was worth it."

"I hope she was worth it?" Jan was beginning to feel sick to her stomach. "Was the woman somebodies wife?"