Chastity and I had been a couple. We lived together for two years and enjoyed a wonderful sex life before it ended. I was certain then I would never see her again. It was a shock when she reappeared in my life. I was working in the city at a daily newspaper. I was a member of a journalists’ club that stayed open after closing time, and often went there after work to have a drink. It was only half past eleven, but I preferred the club because it was quieter than the bars. I was sitting at the bar, flirting with, Jillian, the red-haired bartender who was so pretty she made my eyes ache, sipping a rum and coke.

My attention was focused on Jillian and I didn’t bother to look at the two women who took the stools to my right. Suddenly I heard my name.

“Mike? Is that you?”

I turned to see a middle-aged blond next to me and on the other side of her was Chastity, those blue blue eyes wide with surprise. My heart stuttered.

“Chastity?”

She got up, came to me, put her arms around me, and kissed me. Her body had filled out; she was no longer as thin as I remembered. The years had softened her and made her more beautiful.

The blond watched us kiss and said, “I guess you two know each other.” She moved over to let Chastity sit next to me.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“Anne invited me to have a drink. We went to the theater.” She explained that she was a publicist at a hospital in the city and Anne was her boss. “My god, Mike. It’s so good to see you. How long has it been?”

“Eleven years, six months, two weeks, two days, and—what time is it?” I said, checking my wristwatch for effect, “and twelve hours and about ten minutes, give or take.”

She stared at me for a moment and then laughed, a throaty laugh in a voice age had made deeper, lower. It reminded me of the way she used to laugh after good sex. Her long hair was gone, replaced by a medium length wavy style. The years seemed to dissolve and her presence roused my old feelings.

We had a couple of drinks and caught up with what we had been doing since we broke up. Anne, realizing she was left out of the conversation, had left after one drink.

“Are you with someone?” she asked.

“Nu-huh. How about you?” I said, not really wanting to know.

“Not anymore. I was, but I ended it months ago.”

“You must be getting good at it,” I said. I regretted it immediately when I saw the hurt in her eyes. “Sorry. It was a cheap shot.”

She touched my cheek and looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry, too. I know I hurt you.” She turned and picked up her glass and took a drink. She looked straight ahead at the bottles behind the bar and said, “It took me a long time to get over it, too.”

“It’s okay, baby. I survived.” She turned to me and studied my face and a great wave of emotion washed over me. I had to swallow and compose myself before I could say, “But I never stopped loving you.”

Wetness filled her eyes and she touched the back of my neck and pulled me to her and we kissed again. Her lips were soft and warm. So much feeling seemed to pass between us that I thought there might be a chance she still loved me, too.

Jillian called her a cab and I walked her out to the street to wait for it. When the taxi pulled up we embraced and kissed. She took a business card from her purse and pressed it into my palm. “Please, call me,” she said.

I told her I would and watched the cab take her away. I was choked up. I didn’t want to go back inside the club. Jillian didn’t interest me anymore. I decided to walk the six blocks to my apartment.

I was tired, but I lay in bed for hours thinking about Chastity, listening to the voices in my head arguing over calling her. Part of me wanted her back; the other was afraid to expose my wounded heart to another break. My thoughts swung like a pendulum from one side of the argument to the other.

An old question came back. “Where did the love go?” It had troubled me constantly for months after Chastity left. Gallons of alcohol and a parade of willing women hadn’t rid me of it. Lying in bed that night I asked it over and over again until finally I reminded myself I had no answer. Maybe there was none.

My shift at the paper was three-to-eleven, Sunday to Thursday. As the weekend approached the part of me that obviously has more optimistic courage than good sense urged me to call her. I did.

We chatted for a few minutes and then I screwed up enough courage to ask to see her. “I’m off Friday and Saturday,” I said. “Have dinner with me Friday.” The phone was silent a moment. I held my breath.

“I think we should,” she said finally.

We agreed to meet at a restaurant she liked in center city. I got there early and waited outside. I was a nice spring day, warm and breezy, and I saw her drive into the parking lot and followed her. She was dressed for business in a gray suit with a knee-length skirt and a white blouse. She looked stunning. We hugged and kissed easily and walked to the entrance holding hands.

The cuisine was Asian fusion, pricy but good. Chastity had clams in a chili broth and I had sea bass. The fish was cooked perfectly, flaky and delicious. We killed a bottle of Pinot blanc that was dry and full-bodied, and cost more than my shirt.

I walked her to her car and kissed her again. It was a nice friendly kiss that I couldn’t read into. She had a condo in the suburbs just west of the city. I thought about her all weekend, and was glad to go to work Sunday afternoon. I needed work to occupy my mind.

We exchanged a few friendly text messages on Monday, only light chat, nothing serious. I was still having second thoughts about renewing our relationship. Wednesday night she called me at work about seven. When I heard her voice dread gripped my gut.

“Mike, I want to see you,” she said.

“Okay, sure. Do you want to have dinner again?”

“I was thinking tonight, when you finish work.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Is everything okay?” I said.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot. If you don’t want to, it’s alright . . .” Her words trailed off. I heard disappointment in her voice.

“No, listen. It’s a slow night. I’ll leave early, nine o’clock. Do you want me to meet you somewhere?”

After a pause she said, “I was hoping I could come to your place.”

My heart skipped two beats. “Sure, sure. That’s fine.” I gave her directions and my address and told her to call me when she arrived in the parking garage so I could meet her. I spent the next two hours in a whirl of anxiety, barely able to focus on work. My mouth was dry and my hands were trembled.

I ran home, like a guy in a Hollywood romance trying to stop the girl he finally discovers he loves before she gets on that plane that would take her away.

I cursed the sluggish elevator, paced to and fro, until it at last it arrived at the top floor. In my apartment I began to put some order to the chaos. I put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and made the bed. I gathered up several books that were on the coffee table in the living room. As I rushed to the bookcase I stumbled and dropped one.

Bending to get it I saw it was “The I Ching”. It was open and I scanned the text. My eye stopped on the line: “Where disorder develops, words are the first steps.”

It sunk into my consciousness as a warning to be careful of what I say to her.

My cell phone rang as I finished putting the books away. After a quick check to see if I had missed anything I went down to meet her in the garage.

She got out of the car and came into my arms like a hurt child seeking safety. I wanted to ask what was wrong, I wanted to comfort her, but I remembered the words of the oracle and said nothing. She looked up and smiled. She snuggled against me in the elevator on the slow ascent to the apartment.

“Would you like a drink?” I said after I closed the door.

“Yes. Do you still drink that Irish whiskey? What was it, Jameson? I remember you used to say it’s Catholic whiskey.” She chuckled, as if she remembered something else. “I’d love some of that if you have it.”

“You’re in luck. I have a couple bottles stashed.” I filled two glasses with ice from my modern refrigerator’s ice dispenser and splashed the Jameson into them. As soon as I handed it to her, Chastity took a huge swig, like a stevedore after work.

“Ah!” She shook her head and put her hand on her chest. “That’s good!”

“Are you okay?” I said.

“I’m better now.” She plopped on the sofa. She was wearing jeans and a cotton sweater.

“My ex has been calling me,” she said sadly, “he want to have breakup sex.”

I had to laugh. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “He sounds like an asshole,” I said.

“He’s arrogant, he thinks he’s entitled.”

“What do you think?”

“I think I should have ended it sooner.”

We sat in silence several minutes, sipping the whiskey. I refilled the glasses. She kicked off her shoes and leaned back against the cushions. I wanted her so bad my insides were knotted. Recalling the words of “The I Ching” I waited for her to speak. Instead, she put her glass on the coffee table and cuddled me.

“I didn’t know how much I missed you until I saw you again,” she whispered.

I let her go on.

“I tried to call you at the newspaper, but you had left.”

“When?”

“Oh, I think it was about a year or so after, after we separated.”

“Yeah. I got a better offer from a guy I knew on the job here about then. I was glad to leave. It was difficult not to think of you every day in those surroundings.”

She kissed me softly on the lips. “We were so much in love,” she whispered.

I kissed her back and we began the dance of tongues. Somebody woke and stretched in my pants. I cupped her breast and noticed it was fuller and softer than I remembered. She wasn’t wearing a bra, a discovery that sent me all atwitter. Her heart was pounding like my own and she was breathing hard.

“Oh, Michael, I do still love you. Do you love me?”

“Let me count the ways,” I said. I couldn’t remember all of Liz Browning’s sonnet, but I offered what I could: “I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! If God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

She seemed to melt in my arms, as if a heavy weight was taken off. She wept silently, and her tears soaking into my shirt seemed to wash away all the bitterness and disappointment that had troubled me for the years in between the past and the present moment. We stayed like that for a long time. Sexual arousal left me and sweet affection for her took its place, like flowers blossoming in the spring.

She sat up and dried her eyes with the back of her hands. They were red and wet.

“Can I stay?” she said in a plaintive, childlike voice.

“I was hoping you might. Wanna see my bed? It’s a queen.”

We got up and went into the bedroom and set a new speed record getting out of our clothes. In less than a minute she was in my arms on the bed.

“I cried when you quoted Browning. Did you know it’s my favorite poem?”

“No. It just came to me.”

“I don’t remember you being so romantic.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember your tits being this big,” I said, and felt a hard nipple with the tip of my tongue.

She took my wrist and led my hand to rest between her legs. “I’m ready,” she whispered breathlessly.” She was. It was as wet down there as a hot bath. I was ready too.

She moaned as I entered her. She was tight, hot, open. I felt ripples of pleasure spread over me from the place where we joined. I moved slowly, plunging as deep as I could go into her. It was loving sex, slow and easy; gentle and affectionate. Her legs wrapped around me, her mouth opened to mine, I tasted lipstick and the sweet tang of whiskey.

We made a symphony of sounds—groans, moans, little grunts of pleasure, swishes of friction where our skin touched, the hush of movement on the sheets, tiny wet noises of my cock moving in and out of her juice-filled opening. It was sweet music.

“Oh, Michael . . . a little . . . faster . . . I’m . . . almost . . . there . . .”

I was too. I picked up the pace slightly, trying to hold out to come with her.

She moved faster, grinding back at me, and then she started to come. I was several beats behind her. She raised her head and bit softly into my shoulder, my neck. Her breath came in halting gasps. Her legs stiffened and trembled and she clamped down and milked long bursts of cum out me. I swear the pulses of our climaxes synchronized, like a steady drumbeat, the finale of our symphony.

By the time we caught our breath she was asleep. My skin was wet from my knees to my navel. The lights were on in the other rooms but I was drained of energy and let them burn. I watched her sleep, my skin still tingling from the sensations. The happiness that filled me was tinged with that familiar post-orgasmic sadness.

I covered my lover with the top sheet, and the stirring of the air lifted a cocktail of odors from her. Perfume, shampoo, our bodies’ fluids, a hint of whiskey, all blended together in a wonderful, complex aroma. I breathed deeply, wanting to fill my lungs with it, absorb it into my pores. She snored softly. She looked peaceful. I leaned down to kiss her cheek and saw the hint of a smile on her beautiful lips.

Several thoughts competed for my attention, like a pack of puppies at my feet. She had brought me so much happiness once, and so much heartache, and now she was here and I didn’t know what to expect.

I shut down past regrets and blocked future wishes and rested content in the moment. My last thought before I fell asleep was:

Chastity is back and I hope she never leaves again.