NIGHT THOUGHTS

Paul Spencer got an email from his mother every day, once she realized that email was very much more practical than postal delivery. But he did not read them every day, since some days he just did not have the time. Dodging bullets and bombs had a higher priority in Afghanistan, and it was a quiet week when he could reply to her more than twice.

He read the messages, however, and therefore knew that his parents had become good friends with a couple named Ronald and Ruth Cartwright in the last year. He had heard a great deal about them and to some extent looked forward to meeting them when he came home.

But as it happened, he did not, at least for a while, when he returned. The Cartwrights had left for a month in Europe one week before the US Army sent Paul home for good. That is to say, the Cartwrights that he knew about.

His mother had never mentioned that the middle-aged couple had a grown (adopted) daughter. She had been adopted as an orphan living with her father’s brother’s widow, though there was evidence for thinking that she might be a blood relative.

Jocelyn Cartwright was three-quarters Vietnamese and one-quarter Caucasian, and it was suspected that the one-quarter was from the older brother of Ronald Cartwright, now deceased. Also deceased were her mother and grandmother, who might have confirmed or dispelled the uncertainty.

It was certain, however, that Jocelyn Cartwright was slim, intelligent, articulate, and beautiful. Since Paul Spencer had to spend two weeks living with his parents before his own apartment was ready again, and Jocelyn Cartwright was staying in that same large house while her parents were away, Paul learned this quickly and had it reinforced daily for two weeks.

Jocelyn was twenty-one and about to enter her senior year of college in September. Paul was twenty-four and had to be reintegrated into the law firm he worked at about the same time. So the two young people had quite a lot of free time with each other that fairly cool August.

They were attracted to each other right away, the slim exotic woman and the tall handsome man, and the physical lure (and proximity, even to having bedrooms facing each other) was increased by the discovery that heir personalities were also well matched.

After the first day together, they talked endlessly – or so it seemed to Paul’s mother, who did not take into account the time they spent driving around or walking together or (out of sight of his parents) kissing or holding hands or gentle bodily explorations after the first week.

Two days before Paul was to leave the large house and return to his apartment, he accompanied Jocelyn upstairs and escorted her down the hall.

“Good night – dear!” he whispered, pressing her left hand. “You are the most wonderful guest this house has ever known!”

She warmed with pleasure at his words and her lips parted in a grateful smile. She glanced about to make sure they were unobserved, and then the parted lips were placed on his to admit his darting tongue in allegory of another entry. His hand pressed her body to his and held it for a moment.

Gently she withdrew his fingers from their grasp, and glided to the door of her room. Hand on the doorknob, she whispered back over her shoulder.

“Thank you, Paul – and pleasant dreams!”

Both stared raptly – and some sort of telepathic communication seemed to pass between them. Both sighed and entered their respective rooms.

Hearts throbbing, nerves, tingling, minds seething with erotic thoughts, they prepared for bed…
*****
Paul’s memory was working like a movie projector, flashing before his mind’s eye mental moving pictures, as upon a vast screen, of things seen and remembered, and through the scenes of the past two weeks moved the face and figure of his leading lady, Jocelyn Cartwright.

He saw her as she appeared on his arrival, leaning forward with her hand extended in greeting, a daintily slippered foot at the end of a slim rounded calf, reaching out and rising from the chaise. Lips of coral red parted slightly over even white teeth, dark eyes alight with pleasurable anticipation, breasts trembling slightly in the front of her garment.

He saw her as she appeared days later at a swimming pool, an aquamarine suit exposing lovely legs to the hips, their sweet calves and strong thighs flashing in the sunlight, hips swaying as she moved, breasts bobbing as she dived, bare arms gleaming as she sped down the water.

He saw her as she was at a music concert this very night, when she took the chance to dress up, cool and calmly poised, stunningly beautiful in a backless gown, arms and shoulders rising from the decolletage like fluid statuary, their smooth satiny skin the shade of sandalwood…

He saw her as she ascended the stairs with him, dark-haired head slightly inclined, lips curved in a slight smile, thighs softly swishing in the clinging sheath of her dress.

He saw her as she bid him good night, cheeks suffused with a delicate shade of dark rose, almond eyes burning deep into his, conveying a message unmistakable…

Paul stepped from his shorts and reached for his pajamas. Into his mind came a picture not from memory but imagination fueled by desire, of Jocelyn in a white translucent negligee.