Love, Red Read online

  I was stunned. Reid was the most staid and true individual I had ever known. I couldn’t imagine anything that would allow him to cheat on Sarah, but here he was, admitting to me that sometimes humans are just weak.

  I had never been the kid who gave into peer pressure, but I remember my first thought was that if Reid was unable to stay true to his vows, how could a person as flawed as I was, be able to resist temptation?

  Once again, we were going to try to see if we could resist. I knew that being with Rune would give me the one thing I was craving the most and that was to be desired. We both believed that we could see each other and not start up the affair again. Too much was at stake. Now we were both married.

  I often wondered what others would think of me if they knew the weakness that Rune generated in my character. Maybe we should have been smarter and realized where our seeing each other again could lead.

  But as I wrote the following letters about our time on the east coast, I was starting to understand that the attraction that we shared was more than either of us could resist. As hard as we tried, something always managed to bring us back together.

  Love Letters – Should We or Shouldn’t We?

  Dear Rune,

  It was years before we saw each other again after my visit to Norway. We had kept in touch and would talk every now and then. I remember once when I was on an assignment on the east coast, either in Rhode Island or Connecticut, don’t remember which, and we talked about getting together.

  I don’t know if I ever told you this story, but I guess I had mentioned to a couple of the women on my team that I was going to see an old friend while I was up there. They must have picked up on something, because they started teasing me. I can remember telling them that we were both in relationships. It wasn’t like that.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t let it go. These were the days before caller ID, and the next thing I know, Kim is calling me, faking an English accent. She was confirming the reservation that she said you had made for us at some romantic inn. My heart skipped a beat, and I can remember saying that wasn’t possible. However, the thought that you would want to make love to me again made me swoon – LOL.

  In the end, she finally confessed, but I have to admit, the thought of making love to you was very tempting, but there we were – the test of “would we or wouldn’t we?” I remember you coming to where I was staying. It was an apartment-style hotel. You actually spent the night, and we didn’t make love, but what I remember was the laughing in bed. We were playing, tickling, and just enjoying being together.

  Our next encounter didn’t end that way – thankfully :-). I was in Washington, DC. I love that city. The visuals have always touched a part of me that is hard to explain. It is the heart and history of the country that overwhelms me each time I’m there.

  You were in Maryland at the time and came over to see me. It was very late when you got to the hotel. But we stuck to the ritual that we had established when it comes to getting together. We sit and talk. Laugh and joke. Tease and tempt. Play the “should we or shouldn’t we?” game. We were into full-blown teasing. Me trying not to tear your clothes off. You trying to restrain.

  Don’t need to go to naked on this one, because we never got fully undressed. We were on the bed. Kissing and making out like we were teenagers. Touching, but not letting go. I remember saying how much I just wanted to feel you between my legs.

  From what you told me later, that was the last straw for you. The next thing I knew, you had unbuttoned your jeans and taken them off. You pulled my panties off and then entered the wetness.

  I wonder if you know how hard it is for me to write these letters. My mind just moves into the moment of you making love to me. Right now, my muscles are remembering you being inside of me. My hips want to move to meet the power of your thrust. I can’t stop moaning at the thought of you making love to me.

  I know you think I’ve never fully let go, but the intensity of the pleasure that I feel when you are inside of me is beyond description in many ways. I can’t even imagine what going to OMG is going to do to me. How your body moves to fill me up and the pleasure it brings you, as you move in and out of me.

  If you only knew how much practice those muscles are getting. I hope that when I start grabbing hold of you in my mind, that you feel the twinges of being squeezed. That Mr. Happy can somehow feel me, start to grow, and you don’t even know why, but that there is a sudden smile on your face from a memory and a vision of things to come.

  If you are keeping score, we were only able to resist once so far. Guess that is answering the question of would we or wouldn’t we make love.

  September is never going to get here.

  Hugs and more,

  Gwynyth

  Love Letters – More Regrets

  Dear Rune,

  What did I say earlier about regrets? Sometimes we have them, but don’t realize it until it is much too late. My regret isn’t about what I did, but what I didn’t do.

  We were in DC again. Had spent the day at the Air & Space museum. It was fun being able to see it with you. I had been there before, but there was always something new to see. That’s the great thing about the Smithsonian. They have so much that they are constantly changing the exhibits.

  I was staying at the company hotel in Fairfax. We stopped at the grocery store next door before going back to the hotel. Not sure what we got for dinner, but I remember you buying a candle for setting the mood, knowing full well, the mood was already set.

  We both knew what we wanted. You wanted me and I wanted you. Our times were few and far between, we didn’t even stop to question should we or shouldn’t we anymore.

  What I remember most about that night was that it was the first time that I remember being on top. I love the weight of you on top of me, and I don’t know if it was something we had done before.

  I remember how, as I was moving up and down, you were playing with my breasts. Occasionally, I would lean forward, and you would suck them. You were able to play with them as well as being able to touch the wetness all at the same time.

  I don’t know if it was the position we were in, or the fact that I was so in control of moving up and down on you, or that I could see your face and the pleasure that I was giving you, but I remember how close to OMG I was.

  You knew it, too. You could always feel how much you were pleasing me. You were so in tune with what my body was doing. And then for God only knows what reason, I pulled back. You sensed it immediately and said, “Don’t stop, go with the feeling.” But it was too late. As much as I knew you enjoyed the experience, I knew you were disappointed.

  I am so sorry. I don’t think I can write about it, but would like for us to be able to talk about it for a few minutes before we make love again. If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m assuming that my pouring all our memories into these letters has made you understand that being with you physically is truly one of the most enjoyable experiences I have ever had.

  I hope that knowing how much I desire feeling you inside of me, how much I crave tightening my muscles around you, how much I love you playing with my breasts, and how exquisite your touching my thighs makes me feel, somehow makes up for my lack of letting go.

  Being able to share our bodies is such a unique experience. The fact that our making love is rooted in friendship and laughter has always made me smile.

  Hugs and kisses,

  Gwynyth

  Chapter 10 –

  Psychic Powers or Supernatural Abilities?

  Some of the most loving emails and conversations we had were after he read the above story. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to think you might be disappointing your partner in bed. I often wonder if that is what kept him interested and always wanting one more encounter. He knew how difficult it was for me to open up and tell him how sorry I was for holding back.

  “Your words really touched me. We’ve been discussing this, and I’ve told you it’s not important. We have some
thing that is incredibly special. What we share is much more than an OMG moment,” was his compassionate response as we started talking about the last letter.

  “It means so much to me that you understand.” But the next thing he told me was very difficult to handle.

  “That OMG moment is not what is most important. We’ve been coming back to each other every few years, and we have some marvelous memories. I wouldn’t give them up for anything, but they have come at a high cost to both of us.”

  Something about the tone of his voice felt like a knife piercing my heart. “What do you mean?”

  “I never told you this, but our times together in DC are what ended my first marriage.”

  I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. I loved him so much, but the thought of our actions having caused him pain was very hard for me to accept.

  “Please tell me that isn’t true. You know I never wanted to do anything that would hurt you.”

  “The marriage was already in trouble, but when she accidentally found out about our seeing each other, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say.”

  “How did she find out? Please tell me you didn’t tell her about us. I know some people might not understand how we keep giving in to these feelings, but neither of us ever wanted to hurt the people we were with. We’ve struggled with this for so long.”

  “I know, but no, I didn’t tell her. My brother was going through a tough time in his marriage, and he had an affair. I was trying to make him feel better and told him I understood. It had happened to me. He told his wife, and then she told mine. Sometimes, I wonder why we keep doing this.”

  “Maybe it’s because we have never fully explored what could be. Maybe this is our chance.”

  There are many things that my relationship with Rune has taught me. But one that is most telling is that we should never judge others. We have no idea what leads people to make the decisions they do. I am basically a very good person, but I do have a weakness; and I, no we, tried very hard not to give into the passion.

  I’m not proud that we didn’t have more self-restraint, but we struggled with whether we should or shouldn’t make love from the very beginning. And up until our meeting in New York in August of 2014, we had never deliberately set out to have a tryst, as do most lovers.

  However, each time we talked, I was falling more hopelessly in love with him than I ever had before. He was saying all the right things. We were connecting in a way we never had before. We had always been friends, but we were becoming something more than “friends with benefits.”

  Rune and I were bonding. Our stories were building a link between our past and future. It was allowing us to be free of all the pitfalls of dating someone that we had no history with.

  I was taking each of those memories of our times together and conveying the emotions and circumstances of each encounter. And it was always interesting how each time we were together, it was as if we were prize fighters in a ring. We would each go back to our individual corners and think we weren’t going to get in the ring again. And after those times on the east coast, we stepped back and said it wasn’t going to happen again.

  But one day, I had this overwhelming feeling. It came out of the blue, and it literally made my body shake all over. Before, I always thought I was getting glimpses of the future, but now, I have come to understand that they are previews of alternate universes – windows into other realities. Places where there are feelings, desires, and other lives going on at the same time, but with different scenarios.

  The more conventional wisdom says it is an uncanny sixth sense. Others might call it being psychic, but I’ve never put myself in that category. But on that day, I knew I was going to make love to Rune again. And I knew it would happen before the ball dropped to welcome the new millennium.

  My premonitions didn’t stop with Rune. It was how I would know when my Dad was sick again or significant events in my friends’ lives. Without being told, I always knew when babies were being born or unexpected breakups were taking place. Being given pertinent information weeks before I needed it was a common occurrence.

  There was the way I could draw things to me that were out of the ordinary. I remember the first time it happened. I told a friend that I would get her front row tickets to the Moody Blues concert and a back stage pass. I had no idea how I would go about doing either of those things, as the concert was already sold out. I went to work the next day and mentioned my boast to a friend. She said, “Good luck with that,” knowing full well it was not going to happen.

  The next day, she walked up to me and said, “You aren’t going to believe this, but last night I was having a drink at my favorite watering holes and started talking to the man sitting next to me. Turns out, he was a promoter for the radio station that is sponsoring the concert. I mentioned that I had a friend who was a diehard fan. Next thing I know, he reaches into his jacket pocket and hands me four tickets.”

  “Seriously, he gave them to you, or did he sell them to you?”

  “No, he gave them to me and said he hoped we enjoyed the concert. However, he didn’t have a back stage pass, so you are on your own with that one,” she said, handing me the tickets.

  We got to the concert and discovered that the people who were sitting in front of us had won their tickets. One of the staff came up to them and gave them a backstage pass. As he walked away, I followed him and told him my story.

  “I saw you give those people a pass for after the concert. I need one for my friend. She is the biggest Moody Blues fan I know. Can I please have a pass for her, too?”

  I was hoping the pleading look on my face would get to him, but he said, “No, I’m sorry. They are only for contest winners.”

  He was walking around during the entire performance, talking to stagehands and ticket winners during breaks. Every time I saw him looking our way, I mouthed, “PLEASE, I desperately need a pass.” He would just shake his head no and mouth back, “Sorry.”

  I must have gotten to him, however, because right before the last song, he walked up to me and said, “Enjoy, I hope your friend appreciates what you have done for her,” and handed me the backstage pass.

  It’s over 20 years later, but I still carry that ticket stub in my wallet. It’s a constant reminder of the power of our minds.

  Although these types of manifestations were rare, I have questioned the power of visualization that each of us has. Could we really just think about things and bring them into our lives?

  Or was what I was reading about alternative universe theory, not just a theory, but a series of realities that we could slip in and out of? It was becoming clear to me that the possibility of moving between universes was happening on a regular basis. The number of times I was dealing with Deja vu were happening frequently, that it became the norm. I started to wonder if the manifestations were proof that we have the power to move in and out of universes at will.

  Rune was always astonished how I could always know things without him saying anything. The next letter explained that my powers extended to our relationship as well.

  Love Letters – What Planet Am I From?

  Dear Rune,

  I remember when I was in Norway, I was sitting with you on the bus you were driving. We were at a stop, and you must have been taking a break, as we were alone. I don’t recall the conversation, but I do remember you leaning over to me, and you started rubbing the back of my head. I asked what you were doing and you said, checking for antenna, because I obviously wasn’t from planet earth, and then you started chuckling.

  Call it “spidey–sense,” psychic or premonitions, but I do have a unique sixth sense. About a year before our last encounter, I knew that before the end of the millennium, we were going to make love again. I didn’t know how or when, but my instincts told me we would.

  You were in Houston on business. My heart was pounding at the thought of just being able to see you again. I wasn’t certain if we would end up making love, but I so wanted
to.

  It was nice to have dinner with you. I don’t know what we were talking about, but all my memories of you are filled with laughter. If I remember correctly, I had picked you up at your hotel, but I don’t remember what the excuse was for me to go back to your room with you instead of just dropping you off.

  Had a flood of memories yesterday on my way to a retirement party. I was going up I-45 and drove past the Marriott where we made love. Why I remember some of the details I do is beyond my comprehension – LOL.

  It’s obvious to me, now that I have written all of these letters, that making love to you has left an undeniable impression on me.

  So what do I remember about the last time we made love…?

  I still have no clue as to how our clothes come off. All of my memories start with you laying me on the bed and my spreading my legs to allow you to move into me. Thinking about it sends a spasm through my body. How your touch has caused me to get wet with anticipation. The pleasure that comes as you start to push into me. Writing this is causing me to get wet. I can’t write these without moaning or my insides squeezing.

  I remember thinking the last time you entered me, how you fill me completely. I spread my legs as wide as I can so that you can go as deep as you want to. My muscles start contracting because I want to hold onto you. I want to give you as much pleasure as you are giving me.

  Every movement in and out is one step closer to total and complete satisfaction. If you only knew, what my body was doing right now, just recalling what it was like to wrap my legs around you. How incredible it is to thrust my hips upward to meet your movement downward to fill me with all of you. I am so close to OMG right now, it is taking my breath away. Will you hear the moans I was making writing this?