Tessa and Jon Luc
Tessa brought the French Press to the table before pressing the plunger. The fragrant aroma filled the small glassed in porch. Jon Luc sat back in his chair looking at the waves churning below in the twisted stack of boulders and logs.
“I was just sitting here thinking.”
“Let me pour the coffee and then we can talk.” Tessa pressed the plunger carefully pushing the coffee through the hot black water and poured each of them a cup into the well-used mugs.
The wind blew gusts of sharp rain against the many paned windows, fierce but not dangerous, as it blew so many days in the winter months along the coast.
“It’s so great here Tessa, I’m glad we got out of town for a while.” He looked over at her and smiled, his white teeth framed by the well-groomed full salt and pepper beard.
Tessa leaned toward him to peck him lightly on the forehead. “You smell good,” she said as she took a sip of the black coffee and pulled her sweatshirt down over her thin shorts.
“I was going to ask you if you are going to be able to stay another night or can you call in sick tomorrow?”
“Oh Jon Luc, I’m so sorry, I’ve already promised Lee that I would be back today by noon. But we are planning, the two of us, to come back for the weekend.”
“Good, very good. I really like your young friend.”
“Well not so young. Thirty-three is grown. That’s how old I was when I met you, remember?”
“What I was going to say was I was just thinking back over our years together. I guess it’s the stormy weather. Makes me nostalgic. Remember when we first came out here?”
“How could I forget that? What a mess this place was, all decrepit. The room was so cold and damp and that sagging bed. You didn’t even know how to make a fire.”
“But we were warm, yes?”
Tessa thought back reluctantly because being with Jon Luc had never been easy. He was terribly charming and handsome. She fell for him hard. The side she learned about was not too different from what was she expected.
He pulled her over to him putting her into his lap. Almost seventy, he was what the girls called a hound dog. He wasn’t the least bit offensive, and definitely attractive to women and men alike. He was actually interested in what you had to say and listened carefully when you had a problem always willing to help. If you needed a hug or a backrub or something stronger Jon Luc would be there for you and ask nothing in return.
Tessa knew when she met him that he was untamable. He was a self -proclaimed “polyamorous” being. That’s how they met. She was out on a date when the next thing she knew all three of them were here, at the coast, shacked up for a very hot weekend.
Tessa chuckled, “Yeah, we were warm alright. Hot was more like it. You and old what’s his name? Remember him, and I thought he was so vanilla. Boy was I wrong.”
“Yes, yes, that was a gas and I am so glad because that’s when I met you.”
Tessa leaned back against his chest. They fit so well together. The rain picked and pounded into the windows. The daylight became so obscured it seemed like dusk instead of morning. The warmth from the fire and the heat from the coffee created and otherworldly atmosphere, like being on Venus, suspended in time, breathing in the moment.
Being together for so many years they both knew the spell couldn’t be broken by ordinary concerns, only deepened as he pushed her up from his lap and glided with her to the old motel bed. Laying Tessa on top of his bulk he let her ravage him.
The fire was almost out when Tessa jumped up and showered while Jon Luc slumbered. “Jon Luc, I have to go now, it’s already nine and it’ll take me a good hour and a half to get to Oly.”
“OK. Are you coming back Friday or Saturday?” I promised the widow Samuels, you know Dot, that I would go down to see her in Westport.”
Tessa looked over at him with a bemused smile, knowing full well what special needs he was going to fulfill for the “Widow Dot.”
“We’re coming up early Saturday morning. Do you need us to bring anything from the big city? Probably be here around tenish. You know how excited Lee will be to see you.”
Even though Tessa was twenty years his junior, he respected her intuitive nature and the freedom she gave him. He was getting older and was feeling the pressure. He knew there was only one option, only one thing he needed if he was to meet all of his obligations. “Yes, Tessa my dear, if you would be so kind as to bring me my bottle of little blue pills. They are in the top drawer of my dresser. That would be very kind of you.”
