Every journey has a starting point, but sometimes it’s difficult to tell if there is a destination.

Sometimes you just start rolling and you end up someplace you never imagined.

That’s true of any journey. Even an innocent bike ride on a warm summer morning.

The starting point. A middle-aged man with a wife and kids, not entirely happy but not entirely unhappy either. Happy with most things except between the sheets. It happens to a lot of marriages, after the kids come along. After the partner becomes a mother and doesn’t always have a lot left over at the end of the day to be a wife.

Nothing. Zero. For several years, absolutely nothing. No sex. No kisses. No hugs. Not even a friendly touch on the arm.

The starting point? For better or for worse, this middle-aged man feels isolated in his marriage, the third-wheel so to speak, and the word “intimacy” becomes as foreign to him as if written in some long-dead dialect from half-way around the globe.

So the starting point for this man is isolation and lack of intimacy. And like many men, he finds a similarly situated woman, maybe single, maybe married too, who craves the simplicity of human interaction. Of human intimacy. They become friends at first, then confidantes, and then one day, they become lovers.

That part of the journey isn’t what I’m writing about. It’s pretty run-of-the-mill, although the intimacy shared between the lovers was intense, loving, passionate, mind-blowing…I know, every lover says that about good sex. And the sex was very, very good.

But the journey continues, and after about a year or so of sex (did I mention it was very, very good sex?), a dirty word enters the equation. Feelings. She loves him. He loves her. They say it so easily and they mean it. But this kind of loves demands changes must be made, because she is not going to be the “other woman” forever. She wants to matter in the equation, and be able to be seen in public with her lover. With her partner. Not just time spent, the two of them, in dark places and in off-hours.

So things break down and they come to an end. The man meant well. He truly loved her. He just couldn’t change his life fast enough to be what she wanted. So things end, including the sex, which even the last time they make love, is still very, very good.

Incredibly good. Almost too good to give up. But he has to give it up – to give her up - and he is devastated.

That’s where the bicycle comes in. In the months after the devastating break-up, the man takes up a new pastime. Bicycling. He hasn’t been on a bike since he was twenty years old, but he buys one and starts riding. He goes out for his first ride on a cool April morning, only a few degrees above the freezing mark, but he gets hooked. Five miles the first time out. Then the next day. And the next. Soon he is riding nearly every day, either early on a weekend morning at sunrise, or in the evenings after work, as the days grow longer and allow him to ride later each day.

That man is me. And out of a horrible break-up, I started a new life. A life on two wheels. That is where my journey stopped and changed direction. And I had no idea where I was going. I just was moving forward.

The five miles became ten and then twenty. The half hour rides turned into two or three hour weekend tours of my city. Each day I looked forward to mounting my bicycle, and letting two wheels take me through unexplored territory, both around me and inside of me too.

I still missed the sex. If I have time one day I’ll write about that. It was spectacular, because it came from love and from passion. But as each day passed, I thought about it less. Nothing was happening at home either, still no intimacy. So cycling became my new sex, and my two wheels were my lover. Together we traveled on our journey each day. And sex itself became a fond memory.

August 14 , 2010. A Saturday morning. The sun rose and I arose too. No need to shower before I rode, since I’d work up a good sweat in a couple of miles anyway. Brushed my teeth and put on my gear. A red cycling jersey that made my upper body look defined, even though the truth is that I had a bit of a belly still, though much less than when I started a few months before. Cycling shoes to clip on to the pedals. A helmet. My shades. Cycling gloves. A water bottle.

Oh, and the shorts. Those wonderfully stretchy black shorts. With the padding inside for your butt. The ones you wear commando, since the padding is absorbent. And since they are stretchy, and since you are commando, not much is left to the imagination, especially when aroused.

But that wasn’t entering my mind that morning. The gear was functional and comfortable.

I kissed the kids goodbye in their sleep, and then headed out for my ride. I was on the road by 6:15, and like most of my rides, I had no particular destination. I rode east until the sun was high enough that it became an annoyance and a hazard to seeing ahead of me, so I turned south. Downtown along the main streets. Just me and my lover. My two wheels. A warm ride with the breeze from my speed keeping me cool.

A few turns, left and right and I found myself by the lakeshore. A long boardwalk beside the beach. A bike path beside the boardwalk, so that people like me don’t run over the joggers and the dog-walkers.

Dog-walkers like Julia. The one I almost did run over because she decided to bring her grey standard poodle onto the bike path, because it was paved and easier for her dog to navigate.

She and her dog just crossed my path suddenly, and I had half a second to decide what to do. Hit the dog, or veer away.

Call me soft, but I didn’t want to hit the dog. So I veered. Right onto the sand. Bikes and sand don’t mix well, and I found myself tumbling sideways, with one foot still clipped onto a pedal. By some miracle, that foot unclipped before I landed on my side, so nothing was broken, except my pride and except my bike. My weight on top of it bent the front wheel.

For those who care, the dog was all right. Unharmed.

As ordinary as I thought myself to be, Julia was equally extraordinary. She looked to be about 30, with short brown hair, in almost a boyish cut, wearing black framed glasses. She was taller than me, by a bit, and she wore a white tank top, with navy blue running shorts, and a pair of white canvass sneakers. The look was accented with ankle high white socks. And her look was further accented by two breasts which I can only describe charitably as small, with nipples that poked against the thin white fabric, clearly with no bra in between her top and her skin.

She ran with her dog up to me, as I lay on top of my bike in the sand.

“Oh my god,” she said, “I am so, so sorry. Are you hurt?”

“I think I’m ok, but my bike didn’t fare as well as me.”

“I didn’t even see you,” she said. “Ok, maybe I didn’t even look. I am so sorry. Let me help you get up.”

Julia reached out to me with one hand, holding her dog’s leash in the other. She helped me up onto my feet and then surveyed the damage, looking at my bike.

“You’re right, it took a beating. It just looks like one wheel, though. Can you get it fixed? I’ll pay for it.”

“Don’t worry, I can get it fixed. Bikes are like cars. There’s always someone who can help you for a few dollars. I’m just thinking about how I’m going to get home. I can’t ride this way.”

“Where do you live?” she inquired, watching as I bent over to pick up my bike.

“Midtown,” I answered. “Near the old millworks.”

“I live in the east end,” she said, “and I drove here with Mitzi. I think there’s enough room in my SUV for your bike and for Mitzi.”

Mitzi, I found out, was the dog, and not some unseen friend.

“Really, it isn’t any trouble for me, and it’s the least I can do after making you take a fall. By the way, I’m Julia.”

“I’m Alex. Nice to meet you, even if it isn’t the way I pictured meeting a stunning woman down by the beach.”

She blushed. Even in the morning sunlight, I could see my comment made her blush.

“Maybe you banged your head,” she said, “if you’re calling me stunning.”

“I mean it. You’re lovely. And it’s not post-concussion syndrome talking. You are a very sexy woman.”

She was lovely. I kept picturing her breasts as their tiny outline was so clear under her top, and I could feel myself getting aroused, imagining myself sucking on her nipples and caressing her tiny buds. I noticed her eyes looking down at my shorts, and it was evident she was aware of my arousal too, with the material leaving little to her imagination.

“It seems you like what you see, so I want argue with you,” she said, giggling a bit. “Come on, let’s roll your injured bike over to my car. It’s just down the block, a few cars in on the side street.”

Julia walked Mitzi as I walked my bike, lifting the front wheel off the ground so I could roll it. We reached her car and after folding down the rear seats, my bike lay flat in the back, with just enough room to close the hatchback. Mitzi fit in too, although she seemed cramped with the bike and she just found her empty space and lay down.

“I have an idea,” Julia blurted out. “It’s still early, and I haven’t had breakfast and I bet you haven’t either. Let me try to make up for everything by making you something to eat. I’m about a fifteen minute drive from here, we can go back, I’ll cook, you can clean yourself up a bit from the sand, and we can eat and talk a bit. Leave the bike in the back of the car, and then I’ll drive you home afterwards. What do you say?”

“I say yes,” was my response. “Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse, unless you cook the same way you walk a dog.”

“Great, I find a comedian with a head injury who thinks I’m stunning.”

“I told you, my head is fine.”

We joked with each other on the drive to her house, which was a small bungalow in one of those trendy neighborhoods that used to be working class, until some developer found that he could buy houses cheap, put a few dollars of renovations into them, and sell them for double the price.

We went inside and Julia let Mitzi out in the backyard.

“The shower is down the hall, on the right. I bet you’ll feel better if you take a quick one and get the sand out of your hair, from between your toes and any other nooks and crannies it got into.”

“I don’t have a change of clothes.”

“Get in the shower and I’ll hand-wash your cycling gear…it will dry in an hour in this heat, if I hang it outside. And I’ll throw your socks into the dryer. You can wear one of my robes while it dries.”

“I wasn’t planning on cross-dressing, you know, when I set out this morning.”

“And I wasn’t planning on making breakfast for a guy who’s crazy enough to think I’m stunning. We’re even. Now scat! Get in the shower. I’ll get you a towel and a robe.”

She was right. One minute after getting in the shower I felt better. And there was sand in a couple of nooks and crannies. She left me a towel and a robe, and after getting out and drying myself off, I realized that I didn’t have any underwear. Commando in my cycling shorts. And so I found myself naked in a strange woman’s robe. A stunning strange woman’s robe.

I was reminded of the stunning part when I came out of her bathroom, and walked to the kitchen, seeing her standing beside the stove. She had changed out of her shorts into a pair of leggings, and instead of her white tank top, she was now wearing a sleeveless blouse, that just made her look incredibly sexy. Her glasses were gone too.

She looked delicious. And my cock noticed too, as it became hard under the silky robe.

“Now isn’t that an improvement,” she said. “No more sand…how do you feel now?”

“I feel fantastic. You were right about the shower. And this robe…well, I think the color just brings out my natural highlights in my hair.”

“A fucking comedian. Sit down and eat. Relax.”

I couldn’t relax. At least not what was beneath the robe. And sitting down was awkward, since my equipment simply poked out of the robe and stood straight up from where I was seated. This was not something that escaped Julia’s notice.

“Hmmm. I didn’t remember saying anything about sausages for breakfast.”

“Now who’s the comedian? Sorry…” I said as I tried to tuck myself into the robe.

“Don’t cover up on my account. I kind of like the view.” She turned around back to the stove to take some scrambled eggs off the burner, and then she turned and came to the table and put some on my plate.

“Not as much as I like the view I have.”

“What view?”

“You. You are delicious. You are so unlike any other woman I’ve met.

Your look is different. The way you talk.”

“Get to the point,” she interjected.

“How fast do you want me to get to the point?”

“Just say what’s on your mind, although looking down at your robe, or at least what’s in it, I think I have an idea.”

“Ok, I’ll be blunt. When I first saw you after I fell, my eyes were drawn to those tiny buds under your top. I don’t know if they’re tits or just pimples, they are so tiny. And for some reason that is so damn sexy. They suit you perfectly. I couldn’t imagine you with big and full breasts. And all I could imagine was getting my lips around your nipples and sucking on them. Sorry to be so direct, but you got me really turned on from the start.”

“All right, if you’re done telling me how flat-chested I am, is there anything else?”

“Fine…I shouldn’t concentrate on the physical side of it. I don’t know what it is about you, but you really interest me. The talking in the car on the way over, the way you suggested a shower, everything is just intriguing to me.”

I sat there stunned that I had just said this to a woman who I had met less than an hour before, completely by accident. I sat there too, completely unaware that my robe had fallen open and I was sitting there with Julia getting a clear head to toe view of me. Including my rock solid cock.

“That’s quite a pick-up line,” she said. “Wanna hear what I think about all this?”

“Yes.”

"Besides the fact that a tit-fuck is a logistical nightmare with me?"

"Yes," I said, more laughing than speaking.

With that, Julia walked over to me, having put down the skillet with the eggs back on the stove, and turning off the burner. She walked over to me and knelt down in front of me, pushing aside the robe completely, and taking my stiff cock in her hands. She began to stroke me and then she leaned forward and took me in her mouth.

She sucked on my cock for a minute or two, so gently that I could barely feel her mouth around me. So different from every other blowjob I’d ever had. It was like a dream, it was so light.

Julia broke off from sucking me, and looked up at me from below, still kneeling.

“Don’t think I’m easy, just ‘cause I’m blowing you an hour after meeting you.”

“Why would I think that?” I answered her.

“Because not only am I going to blow you, but I’m going to give you that chance to suck on my microscopic tits too. And if I like what you do, who knows, maybe I’ll let you suck on something else too.”

She leaned forward again and continued her oral magic on my cock. As she did that, I reached down and touched her breasts for the first time, through her blouse. Her nipples were rock solid, little eraser sized nubs on top of the most subtle of slopes. Even being so small, her breasts still felt soft and womanly, and she shuddered as I pinched her nipples lightly and as I stroked her breasts.

I could feel my cum beginning to rise and with that, Julia began to suck harder. The feel of her mouth was still so different from anyone else who had ever done this to me, and I couldn’t hold back any longer, sending streams of cum down her throat. She sucked hard until she felt certain I was dry, and after releasing me from her mouth, she flicked her tongue across the head of my cock, scooping up a lone drop of cum that oozed out.

She stood up and very much in a matter-of-fact way took off her blouse and then pulled off her leggings. My eyes didn’t know where to look first, at her lovely breasts, with bright pink nipples begging for my mouth, or down at her pussy, which was completely bare and which had two of the largest labia I had ever seen, with a prominent clit sticking out for my view.

“Holy shit,” was all I could say.

“I wish I could say I hear that a lot,” Julia said, “but I don’t get too many moments like this. Most guys see a flat-chested lady and just turn around and look for the nearest set of jugs on someone else.”

“Their loss,” she added.

“I don’t know what to do first,” I said. “I’ll be honest, I was looking forward to your breasts, but now, I think I want to go down on you and return the favor you just gave me.”

“Your choice. But let’s move this somewhere more comfortable than my kitchen table. Want to go out in the backyard and give my neighbors a show?”

She was definitely not like any other woman I had met. Different enough that I put my better judgment aside and left her robe on the floor and led her by the hand to her back door, and out into her yard.

“Don’t worry about Mitzi,” she said. “She won’t bother us, as long as she doesn’t smell bacon or liver on you.”

I laughed. “Clean on both counts. Just sausage.”

We lay down beside each other in the grass. I had never been naked on grass before, and while it was an unusual sensation, being with Julia made me forget where I was, as I went down between her legs and began to tongue her wet pussy. Her lips were huge and engorged, and I sucked them into my mouth, much the way she took my cock into her mouth. I sucked hard on her clit, and also started fingering her too at the same time.

She was a gusher. Her pussy was dripping fluid as I licked and sucked her every which way, and as my fingers probed her and massaged her inside.

“It’s not just my lips that are big,” she said. “See how many fingers you can get inside me. Stretch me out.”

I raised my head up and moved to a seated position beside her. I continued to finger fuck her, first with one finger, then adding a second. Her pussy was so tight when we started, but it began to stretch, and soon I had my whole hand inside her, fisting her inside her sopping wet pussy.

“Didn’t expect that, huh?” she asked, as she lifted her knees up and spread herself even wider. “Fuck me with your hand…oh god, I love the way you are filling me up.”

She was wild. She bucked her hips up and was writhing like an animal on the grass. She was fucking my hand as much as my hand was fucking her, and she kept smiling and looking at me as if to say “Isn’t this a blast?”

I couldn’t believe that men passed over this lovely woman just because she had small breasts. But I also thought of how many women ignored me over my lifetime, just because I was a few inches too short for their taste, or because I wasn’t ripped like David Hasselhoff (in his prime, at least). I guess looks matter.

She was also a squirter, and as she reached her climax, I felt my hand and arm getting drenched.

“Holy fuck,” she said, “that was too much. What do you wanna do next?”

“My eyes were still on her breasts, but my cock was stirring again, and I imagined it entering that wet wonderland of a pussy while I could still lean forward and taste her breasts. The missionary position does have its advantages.

“What if I said I want to fuck you now?” I asked. “What if I just wanted to slide into you and fill you and…”

Julia stopped me.

“What if I wanted the same thing? Are you crazy enough to fuck a woman you’ve known for less than two hours, and who nearly got you killed because of a big grey dog? You don’t know me…you don’t know my last name…I don’t know yours…shit, I don’t even know if you are…married? Are you married?”

“Yes, “ I answered. “Does it matter to you if I am?”

“Well, it matters if I like what happens today and I want it again. If I let you fuck me, and if it’s as good as everything so far, I think I might want it again. Maybe on my bed next time instead of in the kitchen or on the grass. If I let you fuck me, what if I start to like you too, and not just your equipment?”

Journeys have a way of going around in circles sometimes. I was back to being the man who was fucking the “other woman”.

“I understand,” I said. “Maybe I should just get dressed now, even if my stuff is still damp. I don’t want to suck you into something.”

“Maybe you should,” she said. “But what if I do let you fuck me and I don’t like it, and I don’t want it again. What if you are a lousy fuck? What if this is a one-time thing?”

“What if?” I asked.

“I won’t know unless we try it, will I? You think you can fuck me without falling in love?”

“It may be too late,” I said.

“I hear ya…ditto,” she answered. “So the damage is done. As long as it is, let’s get our money’s worth. I’m lying here with my legs spread open, with a gaping wet pussy, and you’ve got a cock that looks like a cannon on a destroyer waiting to shoot down a plane. Nothing to lose, right? Get to it!”

I leaned down onto my elbows, laying on top of her, and thrust my cock into her waiting pussy. She was still stretched and wet, so it wasn’t the tightest fuck I’d ever felt, but it was the sweetest and most luscious one. I brought her legs up and wrapped them around me as I pounded myself into her with fury, perhaps thinking this might be a one-time thing, and I didn’t want to hold back. She moved her hips back at me with every thrust, apparently not holding back either.

She was the first to cum, and she was not quiet about it. She started to shout at me, “Oh fuck…oh fuck…oh fuck…your cock is killing me it feels so good….oh fuck…oh fuck I’m cumming…” Her neighbors were definitely not missing the soundtrack on this show.

Then it was my turn, and before I could erupt she pulled herself away from me and knelt down in front of me, pushing me upright and saying, “Cum on these tiny tits…you wanted to suck on them so cum on them and suck your cum off my tits.”

My cock let loose a load onto her breasts, and true to her word, she wanted me to suck her tiny nubs, which I did, savoring our flavors mixed together.

We sat together naked in the grass, while Mitzi sat at the opposite end of the yard, apparently more interested in a butterfly hovering around than in the two animals in heat that had just fucked in the open air.

Journeys don’t always have a destination. Julia got my clothes for me, and after we shared a quick shower together (which involved a quick ass fuck under the hot water), we dressed and Julia drove me first to the bike shop near my home, where we dropped off my broken set of wheels, and then to my home, dropping me off a block from my front door, to be discreet.

We still hadn’t exchanged last names or anything important about our lives, such as our occupations. We had just shared a moment brought on by an accident. We exchanged cellphone numbers, though, and we ended up meeting every Saturday morning for the rest of the summer and well into September, finding new and exciting places to get naked together and finding new and exciting ways to enjoy our bodies together.

We always joked about falling in love, and I have no doubt that I really did the first time I laid eyes on Julia. She confessed the same thing to me. The sex was not just good, it was fantastic, because as much as we talked about love, we were able to bring things back to being real with a good laugh. I made fun of her tiny tits, and she made fun of my…well, she made fun of everything. We never took ourselves seriously and we never tried to understand what it was that we had.

My bike got fixed and I went back to riding, and as the fall turned to winter, we just seemed to have less opportunities to get together, and we met once a month, then every two months, until by the next summer, we went three months without getting together. Phone calls were less frequent too.

And then last November she called me to say that she was moving. A job opportunity in a small town about two hours southwest of our city. I didn’t even get to see her before she left, and we just exchanged messages on our voicemail. And she was gone.

Journeys don’t always have a destination. Most of mine don’t, at least. It is mid-winter now, spring is a month or so away, and my first bike ride of the season is perhaps two months away. No more rides to the lakeshore when spring comes, I tell myself. It’s too dangerous with all those joggers and dog-walkers. I’ll look for different journeys.

I miss the sex. From my prior affair? Yes, I’ll admit it. From my time with Julia? Very much so.

But as luck would have it, I received an email out of the blue yesterday from her, which prompted me to write this story. It seems she has a meeting in town next week, and she will be staying at a hotel about a ten minute drive from my office. Two nights here in town. Two nights, she added, with a reservation for a room with two queen sized beds, but which could be changed to a king size if she calls them at least twenty-four hours before her arrival.

We never needed a bed before to enjoy each other’s company, so why should it matter now? Maybe that was her way of making a joke.

And yes, I am laughing now as I write this story, having written back to her that the queen sized beds would be just fine, since I could think of at least a dozen other places I’d like to be with her. Just so long as she leaves the dog behind, and just so long as she promises not to ask what it is that we have with each other.

I’m sure she’s laughing about my comment. She knows all about my journeys and she is on one of her own too. Neither of us wants to risk the laughs just for the sake of figuring out what our destinations might be.