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Author's Note: Stories on this site may contain fiction of an adult nature. They may contain themes involving Incest, under age sex, rape, bestiality, drugs or alcohol abuse. If these subjects make you uncomfortable please exit now. The stories are meant for the entertainment of adults as defined by your local government or society, if you are below this age please exit now. The author does not condone or encourage anyone to act in real life the way the characters depicted in this story act.
Published : 14 February 2021
A Love to Remember for Valentines Day
Other stories by Steven Seven can be found here
Story Code: MF, love, pregnancy, betrayal, fantasy, happy ending
They were always, and never, a couple. They were always coming together. To laugh. To talk about everything under the sun. To offer a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, when life was just too damned hard and cruel. To confide secrets they didn't feel comfortable sharing with anyone else. And once upon a time, to enter the deepest place of physical intimacy, a place that was more wonderful, and more heartbreaking, than either of them had ever imagined it could be. But they we never staying together. They were always peeling away when the demands of family, or work, or life goals became too insistent. Or when what should have been a passing infatuation with someone else turned into something like a quicksand of stuckness, of responsibilities that could not be shirked. Maybe this time would be different. But how can we talk about this time without looking back at all those other times? We really must begin at the beginning. They grew up in the same town, but in different neighborhoods. They went to the same high school, but traveled in different social circles. They might never have even spoken except for an accident of fate: their last names began with the same letter of the alphabet. This put them in the same high school homeroom, where everyone was assigned to sit in alphabetical order. Still, they could have sat at opposite ends of the room. Except that the second letter of their last names was also identical. This put them in adjacent chairs. Every day of high school, first thing in the morning, they sat one behind the other. And they talked. And talked. They talked so much that they couldn't fit it all into homeroom. They talked by phone after school. She asked him for help with her science and math homework. They visited one another's homes. They stayed for dinner. Their families each accepted them as if they were already part of the extended family. Some people assumed that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. They told everyone that they were just good friends. But everyone suspected it was much more than that. He had had a crush on her from the first time he saw her. She was beautiful, energetic, and full of life. He was more reserved, intellectual, and serious. If opposites attract, then they were made for each other. He thought so. But she had other ideas. She had kept him in the friend zone most of the time. She actually thought he was kind of cute. And he was very sweet to her. But with all the top high school athletes competing to date her, she had a galaxy of handsome young men circling around her all the time. That goes to a girl's head like nothing else. With so many boys to choose from, why settle with any single one of them for long? After graduation, they went to different colleges. They almost lost touch. Except when the chips were down. When they had no one else to turn to for emotional support. Then would come the midnight phone calls. The long drives from one college town to another. That's when their emotional closeness first became physical. He had always wanted it. She had always been open to the possibility, but shied away. She was afraid that she would hurt him. He thought he was emotionally strong enough to accept whatever consequences might follow going to bed together. She knew that he wasn't. He was too nice, too kind, too chivalrous. She knew too many men who weren't. She loved him as a friend, and she would die of guilt and shame if she ever hurt him. But it happened anyway. Her boyfriend, the quarterback of the university's champion football team, the Heisman Trophy-winning player who was guaranteed a spot in the NFL, had cheated on her. Again. And this time, he hadn't even tried very hard to hide it. He had practically thrown it in her face. She was humiliated, devastated, and lost. She thought about killing herself. But she called her best friend instead. He dropped everything and drove through a snowstorm to reach her. Whenever he had visited her at college before, he had always stayed with his high school buddy. This time he got a hotel room. He picked her up at her dorm and took her there. He bought her ice cream. They sat on the bed and talked into the wee hours of the morning. Exhausted, they lay down side by side. He kissed her on the lips for the first time. She felt something inside her break free, as if bands of iron around her heart had snapped. She kissed him back, over and over, with a passion that surprised them both. Their hands and bodies met in all sorts of places they never had before. No words were spoken, until at long last, she uttered those two fatal words: "Take me." He did. Gladly. He felt years of pent-up desire within him finally coming to the fore. But he was very inexperienced. He had only had sex a few times before, with a college girlfriend, in a relationship that seemed to have ended almost before it had begun. Now he was finally with the woman he truly loved. He was clumsy and uncertain. He loved her so much, he was afraid of disappointing her. She didn't care. Not at that moment. She wanted to be as close as she could possibly be with this man who had given her emotional support and sage advice since they were young teenagers; the man who had braved a snow storm to drive through the night to save her. When she had gone down to meet him outside her dorm, the snow had settled on his hat and coat in a mantle of white. He was her white knight in shining snow armor. That was the only time they had sex. Just that once. But she got pregnant. She didn't tell him. She went to her ex-boyfriend, the football quarterback, and told him he was the father. She threatened to go public unless he married her. She wanted revenge. She wanted to be married to a rich, famous athlete. Growing up, her family had never had much. Now she wanted it all. The man, the money, the big house, the works. She tried to put her best high school friend, the father of the baby inside her, out of her mind. He heard the news almost by accident, through her sister, when he was home one weekend. She asked him who he was taking to the wedding, since she naturally assumed he had been invited. He was speechless. He had to turn away before she saw his tears. The woman he had adored for nearly a decade, who had made his dreams come true one snowy night in her college town, had gone back to her unfaithful boyfriend. Betrayed, he burned through a jungle of emotions in the days that followed. Rage. Anger. Sorrow. Melancholy. Despair. And then, for the longest time, nothing at all. A deadness settled upon his heart, covering it deep under the ashes of emotions burned to cinders and dust. He was a dead man walking. Then, breaking through that dead calm pile of ash like a single blade of grass, he felt something new. Determination. He was determined to live, to build a life for himself by throwing himself into school, and then into work. Not just a job, or a career. A company. An industry. He set his sights on becoming as important in his field, as rich and successful, as anyone had ever been. Maybe more than anyone else had ever been. After earning his degree in engineering with a minor in business, he moved to Silicon Valley. He worked his way up in one company after another. He proved to be adept at technological innovation, with a rare degree of business savvy. He innovated. He networked with other movers and shakers in the industry. He got recruited from one company to another. And then he started his own company and grew it into a worldwide powerhouse. Before he turned 35, he was a billionaire listed on the Forbes list of the 400 richest people on earth. Along the way, he had dated sporadically, never sure if he wanted to marry anyone but her. Many women wanted him, but he could never be sure if they really wanted him or his money. At long last, he decided to simply choose someone who could give him children and make his house a home. He thought about his many female friends, the women he had dated at one time or another, and simply chose one to propose to. It was almost like a business merger and acquisition decision. He rated her qualities and judged her a suitable mate. They married and had three children in short order. By the day he turned 40, he hadn't spoken to the one woman he truly loved in a decade and a half. That's when his phone rang and he heard her voice. "Happy birthday!" she said with the same cheery voice that he remembered from the first day he sat next to her in high school. His heart skipped a beat. His throat was so tight he couldn't speak even though his mouth was open and his tongue was moving. He shook his head rapidly to clear out the confusion. "Thanks" was all he could say. There was a moment of silence on the line, as if a reservoir of unspoken emotion was being held in place by a gigantic dam. The concrete of that dam was beginning to shudder and crack. Then the dam burst. "I'm sorry" she said, and began to sob. He burst into tears. "I am too. But I don't know why" he said. Then the words flowed from both of them as if the intervening years had never happened. They spoke of their feelings about everything that had happened. They talked about their lives and their families. She had only the one child, a son, who was very bright and was studying engineering in college. His three children were much younger. Almost nothing was said about the people they had chosen to marry, except that the marriages continued to lumber along like dinosaurs that expected extinction to come along at any moment. She didn't tell him that her son was his child. The call went on and on, as afternoon turned to evening and evening into night. He had to use another phone to tell his wife that something had come up at work and he would be home late. Eventually, the call had to end. Each one waited for the other to say something, to make a move, to give a sign, that this preternaturally prolonged phone call was more than a one-off event. He spoke the fatal words: "When can I see you?" Her heart fluttered like a bird in a cage seeing the cage door open for the first time in years. She had been praying to hear those words from him. They discussed their different schedules and soon found an opening when they could meet. The date was set for the following month. The place would be San Francisco. She would fly in from Texas. He had never cheated on his wife before. He was surprised that he felt so little reluctance to do it now. In fact, he had the weird feeling that being with his wife had been cheating, while meeting the love of his life again after so many years was the honorable thing to do. The hours and days that followed until their fateful meeting seemed to drag on with excruciating slowness. When the day finally came, he drove north from his home in Atherton to the city of San Francisco. He had reserved a room at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. She had already checked in by the time he arrived at noon. He went to the room and knocked. She opened the door. They embraced, but did not kiss. It was too soon for that. He ordered champagne and a light meal from room service. He showed her photos of his children and his wife. She made approving comments. Then she showed him a photo of her only child. As soon as he saw the young man, he noticed that the boy did not look anything at all like his athlete father, but he said nothing. They drank champagne and nibbled on delicious food as they talked. Whenever there was a moment of silence, they gazed out the windows that overlooked the city and the bay. He suggested they take a walk. San Francisco is a very walkable city. They strolled for hours, and eventually found themselves in Chinatown. Wandering into one of the many shops that catered to the tourist trade, they came under the gaze of an old Chinese woman sitting at the back of the shop. She looked as ancient as the hills. The elderly woman spoke to a young girl in Chinese. The young girl approached them and spoke in English. "My grandma wants to talk to you." Confused but intrigued, they accompanied the girl to the back of the shop. Using her granddaughter as a translator, the old woman asked to see their palms. She examined each palm carefully. She asked for their birth dates. Then she consulted a book of Chinese astrology. The old woman opened a small drawer in a red lacquer cabinet and removed a red and gold box. She handed him the box and told him to look inside. He found a small statue and a packet of powder. Speaking through her granddaughter, the old woman told them to set the statue in a place of honor and burn the herbs and incense in front of it. He was bemused. "No thank you" he said. "I don't believe in this stuff." After the granddaughter had translated his words, the old woman laughed. Through her granddaughter she said "This stuff as you call it believes in you!" "I don't buy it" he said. Through the granddaughter, the old woman said: "No charge. This is not for sale. This is a gift. Do what I told you with it." They took the box and left the store. "I think she's crazy" he said. "I don't" she said. "I have a good feeling about her. Let's do what she said. What do we have to lose?" They walked back to the hotel. He set the statue on a table. She prepared to light the incense. "This is a no smoking room" he said. She shrugged. "It's bound to get pretty hot in here anyway" she said with a grin. Then she lit the incense. It smelled like nothing either of them could identify. Soon they began to feel faint. "This is some kind of trick!" was the last thing she heard him say. The next words came in a man's voice, but it was not his. "I now pronounce you man and wife" the minister said. They were standing before one another dressed as bride and groom in front of a church packed with friends and family. He said nothing. She stared wide-eyed. The crowd was silent. She heard her sister's voice say "Did you forget how to kiss?" Everyone laughed. He looked at his new bride. She was in her early twenties. So was he. He leaned forward and kissed her. The crowd applauded. Everything that followed seemed like a normal wedding to everyone else, but not to them. They pretended to be overwhelmed by how wonderful the event was. In truth, they were simply overwhelmed by the unreality of it all. At the wedding reception, they ate and drank and danced as if there were no tomorrow. Many of their older relatives gave them sage advice about the long lives they had in front of them with their new marriage. The happy couple wasn't even sure they would see the next day. When they were alone that evening they discussed the insanity of what was happening. "Are we dreaming?" she asked. "Hallucinating is more like it" he said. "But everything seems so solid and real. I just don't know." "Remember what the old woman said? This is a gift. Let's make the most of it, whatever it really is" she said as she unbuttoned his shirt. They undressed one another as they kissed. Then they climbed into bed. They made love to one another for the second time in their lives. Just as they were about to drift off to sleep, she kissed him one last time. "I don't know what will happen in the morning" she said "so I have to tell you the truth tonight. My son is yours. We made him the night we went to bed in college. I never told my husband or my son. All these years, I never told anyone else. I came to San Francisco to tell you. I thought you should know. I don't want any money. You are much richer than my husband, but we're plenty rich. Our son…your son…lacks for nothing. Except for not knowing who his real father is. He doesn't get along well with my husband. They are too different. I'm not asking for pity or forgiveness. I did what I had to do. I didn't want to make you marry me. I wanted you to live your own life. I always knew you would achieve great things. You didn't need me for that." She began to cry. "What I didn't understand is how much I needed you." He threw his arms around her. "I've always loved you" he said in between kisses. "You knew that. How could you not? I would have done anything for you." "That's the problem" she said. "I didn't want you throwing your life away on someone like me. I married the athlete who was guaranteed to be a millionaire the day he started playing professional football. You had to work your ass off for years to get where you got. My husband's retired now. He does TV sports and all that stuff. And he still cheats on me. I know he does. But I don't care anymore. I've got our son. Your son and mine. He's a fine young man. I couldn't ask for anything more." He touched her face tenderly. "You could ask for me. Say the word. I'm all yours." She embraced him and said through her tears "I love you so much!" They fell asleep holding on to one another for dear life, not knowing what the morning would bring. When they woke the next day, they were still a young married couple in their twenties, just out of college. They went on a short honeymoon. After that, he started working as an engineer. A few weeks later, she announced that she was pregnant. She gave birth to a son. The same one from her other life. But this time, the boy would grow up with his real father. Their lives were strangely new and old at the same time. News of the world, movies and TV, were all repeats of things they had seen and heard before. The only thing different was their lives together. Every night they went to bed in fear that this new life would be gone by morning. Every morning when they found themselves still together, they gave thanks and renewed their love. What an amazing experience, to re-live your life with a different partner, and to compare your new life with the old one. He and she realized truly for the first time what a mistake it had been for them to ever have married anyone else. Their lives just clicked now. They were the opposites that attracted and complemented one another perfectly. Night and day, the hours and minutes contained the same life challenges that everyone else faces. But for them, there was something additional that no one else had. They knew how much more difficult those challenges had been when they had been in unsuitable marriages. Now that they were finally married to one another, they saw the silver lining in every cloud. They brought loving compassion to everyone they met, because they themselves had been blessed beyond all reason or expectation. He achieved the same business success he had achieved in the other life. Yet he was much more generous with his money now. He did not give it away foolishly. But he did give it away to many more worthy causes than he had in his last version of life. For his fortieth birthday, she suggested that they go to San Francisco. They had been there many times over the years, looking for that old Chinese lady. They never found her. Maybe this time would be different. It was. They found her shop in Chinatown. They went directly to the granddaughter and asked her to take them to see her grandmother. The old woman greeted them with a smile. Through her granddaughter, she asked "Did you enjoy the gift?" He felt shivers run down his spine. His wife held his hand with both of hers and leaned on him. "Yes" he said. "We are so grateful. I don’t know how to thank you. You saved us!" The old woman shook her head dismissively. "I did not save you" she said. "Your love did." He offered her money, but she refused. "Give to people who really need it" she said. "Not me." He looked at his wife. She addressed the old woman. "What happened to the people in our other life? Where are they now?" The old woman smiled. "Everyone makes their own lives. They get what they give. You two are not like other people. Who knows why? I saw how different you were when you first came into my shop. I read it in your palms. I saw it in your astrological charts. You were born to love one another. Then you let other things get in your way. I gave you the chance to fix your mistake." They thanked her profusely and left the shop in a daze of happiness. For nearly twenty years, every night they had gone to sleep worried that their new life would disappear with the rising of the sun. But it hadn't. It was the real life. And it was here to stay. Just like their love. A love to remember. 3,779 Words. If you would like to read more of my stories, click here
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