True Loves Kiss

Howard and Alice step around the kitchen gathering plates, glasses, and utensils to put on the table for dinner. Their meal already cooked, ready to be transferred to the plates. After the transfer is complete, they sit to enjoy the meal. Before they do eat, they look at each other then laugh.

           “Which one of our kids would have said that we been together so long that we’re tethered?” Howard asks.

           “Most likely, Junior, then Hayley would agree,” Alice says.

           They snicker, smile then eat their meal until finished then they hand wash the dishes. Since it become just them in the house, the dishwasher had become obsolete. The task done they step into the living room, sit on the couch, turn on the television then channel search until they find a program that interest them both. They watch until it is bedtime.

They wake then help each other to prepare for work in a synchronize manner until they step out of the house to their own cars then drive off in separate directions. He is employed in an office of an overseas shipping transport company. She is employed in the personnel office of the city’s main hospital.

“We should separate,” Howard says.

           Taken-aback Alice says, “what?”

           “I mean not to separate from each other but to live apart.”

           “What for?”

           “When was the last time that we had sex? I mean the sweaty, wow, sex.”

           “It has been a while. I guess.”

           “You guess well that should tell that we’re missing what used to be great.”

           “So, we sleep in separate bedrooms until the thrill hit us.”

           “Under separate roofs, I mean under separate roofs.”

           “And the real reason that you thought of this?”

           “There is nobody else, honest. I mean that since the kids been gone, we have been living in a runt and need to get out of it.”

           “I don’t think that we are living in a runt because we knew it was coming with Junior married and living a thousand miles away and Hayley’s career in the air force. I mean we lived for our empty nest and got it.”

           “It is not a lively empty nest, loving one but not a lively one.”

           “Shall we come home from work and get naked and prance around like that?”

           “No, nothing like that.”

           “What made you think of this?”

           “James is being transferred across the pond.”

           “You want to go with him?”

           “No. He has a condo and now must sublease it. It’s downtown. We live apart but still as husband and wife and see each other on the weekends, holidays, and birthdays and so on.”

           “And this will kick us out of our runt and our sex will become a thrill.”

           “There is no harm in trying it.”

           “How do we explain this runt killing to our kids.?”

           “We will tell them we are trying to get rid of the tether feeling.”

“Dad are you out of your mind? Mom told me what you two are doing,” Junior says.

           “No Junior I am not,” Howard says.

           “Dad, mom is not an old maid.”

           “I’m not saying that she is.”

           “No dad, what I mean is that if some guy maybe where she works gets wind of what is going on between you two and hit on her thinking it is a legal separation.”

           “She can handle herself to get out of such a situation.”

           “I hope so dad.”

           “How is Maggie?”

           “She’s fine.”

           “And Little Junior?”

           “He’s happy. And that’s another thing, Little Junior just learned to call mom mom-mom. I don’t want him having to say mom-mom to an evil stepmother.”

           “That’s not going to happened Junior please believe me.”

           “Okay dad.”

“I will not be able to get together with you Saturday,” Alice says.

           “Why not?” Howard asks.

           She sighs. “I have a date.”

           “What?”

           “I told Elizabeth about us living apart and she took it in a different way and now most in the office knows so Helen set me up with a friend.”

           “Living apart, we are living apart not like a legal separate.”

           “I understand but it is hard to explain to people with their own mindset.”

           “Why did you have to explain it at all. I mean it’s for us to understand. Damn who is he?”

           “I told you a friend of Helen.”

           “Better watch out about friends of someone you know. We have seen enough T V movies about that.”

           She laughs. “I’ll remember that.”

           “I hoped that we could be together all weekend.”

           “We can be together all-day Sunday.”

           “Not enough days for what I had in mind.”

           “See you Sunday and come early.”

“Mom, Junior wrote me about this silliness that you and dad are doing,” Hayley says.

           “Wrote you?”

           “Yes, I’m still stationed overseas.”

           “I thought that you were still stationed in Colorado.”

           “Stop avoiding the reason that I called.”

           “It is just an experiment to enhance our lives to get out of our dull empty nest syndrome.”

           “Quite a lot of experiments go bad mom.”

           “We have it under control.”

           “Are you both sure because when I visit, I sure don’t want come home to a new daddy.”

           “If something like that happens then it would be a step-daddy.”

           “Mom, please don’t joke about it.”

           “Your father and I are still wife and husband and nobody on this earth is going to interfere with that.”

Alice prepares sandwiches with potatoes chips and soda to snack for her and Howard.  

           “I didn’t plan for it to go this far,” Howard says.

           “For me, it just happened. I guess I can just say that,” Alice says.

           “What do we tell the kids?”

           “The truth.”

           “I should have never thought of it.”

           “I see it like it was coming anyway.”

           “You see it now, but did you see it before my idea?”

           “Let’s say it was in my head, but I ignored it.”

           “So, our love for each other is over?”

           “As husband and wife, yes.”

           “I don’t get it, understand it, all I wanted was to put spice in our lives, especially our sex.”

           “Now that did happen.”

           “So that we can be friends.”

           “Friends.”

           “Yes.”

           “Did you get serious with someone?”

           “No, did you?”

           “No.”

           “But you dated another woman.”

           “I did after you told me that you had that date.”

           “Didn’t you have fun doing it?”

“No, not really, with you on my mind.”

“I had the same feeling.”

“Then why the divorce?”

“So that you and me, can be lovers until death do us part but not under the same roof.”

“No one between us?”

“Not a soul.”

“Well, James position became permanent, so I am still in the same place.”

“Good. I like visiting there. The view of the city and all and that hot tub.”

“What do we tell the kids?”

“The truth.”

They kiss, with passion.