Howard Ames had led a very lonely life for the last fifteen years. That’s how long it had been since his wife, Martha, died of cancer and left him alone with their two children, Greg, seven, and Ellen, six. The first six months had been a hell of trying to help Greg and Ellen understand what had happened and promising them he’d do his best to raise them on his own.
That had been the most difficult task he’d ever taken on, more difficult even than putting himself though Engineering school, more difficult even than working his way up in his company for the ten years he and Martha had been married before she died. He’d had little time for his family during those ten years, but that was all right because Martha was there to manage their home and take care of Greg and Ellen. After she died, it was not only his responsibility to earn an income to support them, but also his responsibility to do all the housework, the cooking and laundry, and to make sure Greg and Ellen grew up to be responsible adults.
Howard had been very successful as an engineer, not so much as a single parent. Howard was a person who relied on an analysis of issues and logical solutions to fix problems in his life. He didn’t have much in the way of empathy toward the issues his children experienced as they aged into adulthood. They were supposed to just figure out how to live with those issues.
Greg had gotten involved with drugs and almost didn’t finish high school. With a lot of Howard’s money and the help of a very good rehabilitation center, Greg got himself straightened out and went on to get a degree in Sociology and a job as a counselor for the same rehabilitation center.
Ellen had done fine until she was thirteen. At that age, she did what most teenagers do and rebelled against every rule Howard had put in place to make sure she remained a virgin until she was married. He knew she’d lost her virginity long before that happened, but now she was married to a man Howard liked and trusted to take car of his daughter.
When they both left home, he was both sad and happy. It meant being more alone that he’d ever been in his life, but it also meant he could be himself again, be the man with a desire to live life with a woman he loved. He didn’t have to worry about money and he’d progressed high enough in his job that weekend and holiday work were just stories he could tell to beginning engineers so they wouldn’t think those things were unique to them.
To avoid being alone all the time, Howard had pursued a hobby that had always interested him but that he’d never been able to enjoy because of his children. That hobby was ballroom dancing. It interested him for a couple reasons.
He’d read about ballroom dancing enough to know the movements were very structured and therefore would be relatively easy for him to learn. All one needed was the ability to memorize the steps and enough coordination to be able to execute the steps in a graceful manner. Ballroom dancing was also a good form of low-impact exercise for a man who was forty-nine and spent his day sitting in a chair in front of a computer.
The second reason he’d also gleaned from reading and that was that a lot of single women took up ballroom dancing because it gave them an opportunity to dress up for dances and also a chance to meet men. Howard was ready to meet women, decide which woman was right for him, and then marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. He registered for the group classes at a popular dance studio with both goals in mind.
Howard hadn’t underestimated his ability to learn the various dance patterns that were taught in the group classes. Learning the patterns was easier than learning to program a robot to do a set of tasks efficiently and safely or to program a computer to automatically collect test data and send it to a server. He hadn’t really considered his ability to translate those patterns into the smooth actions required to execute those patterns. Howard was almost six feet and three inches tall, and coordination of his legs and arms wasn’t one of his strong points. Learning the patterns had been easy. Doing them wasn’t.
It took six months of practicing before the instructor, a woman originally from Hungary named Adrienne Puskas, told him he was doing better than most of the men in the class. That made Howard feel good about himself, good enough that he wasn’t nervous about asking the women in the class to dance with him at the monthly dances the studio held.
It was at one of those dances that Howard met Janet, a pretty but very quiet woman with blonde hair and a full, but not fat figure. Howard hadn’t seen her at any of the dances before. When he asked her to dance a waltz she smiled and said she’d just started taking classes and wasn’t sure she was good enough yet. Howard said he wouldn’t do anything fancy, so Janet accepted.
Howard had only seen Janet sitting at a table so he hadn’t realized she was only five feet tall, but he couldn’t back out once she stood up. He also hadn’t realized that her breasts were pretty big because she sat with her shoulders rolled toward her front.
When they started to dance, Howard tried to keep a polite distance between them, but since Janet was so short, he had to either bend over or pull her in closer in order to put his right palm on her left shoulder blade. If he bent slightly, his arm was pressed tight against Janet’s left breast. If he stood up straight, that pulled Janet in close enough he felt her breasts touching his stomach from time to time.
After dancing with Janet for about thirty seconds and deciding that holding her close was easier, Howard realized something else. It had been over fifteen years since he’d felt a woman’s breasts touching him anywhere. It was only because Janet wasn’t very tall that was causing that to happen, but he decided he liked it. He liked it enough he asked Janet to dance two more waltzes.
Janet had been nervous about signing up for dance classes and had only done so at the urging of her daughter, Sarah.
“Mom, you’ve been single since I was two when you and Dad divorced. Now that I’m married, you’re all alone. You need a man, not necessarily a husband, but a man friend. I’ve seen how you stay away from people and I understand that. Dad didn’t treat you well at all and you’re afraid some other man will do the same thing. I can tell you that most men aren’t like that. Most men find one woman and stay with her for life. They don’t go getting a girlfriend like Dad did. Find a way to be around men and you’ll find out that’s true.”
Janet had reluctantly investigated a couple singles’ clubs in the area and had decided they weren’t for her. Sure, they did some fun things like taking a trip to a beach or an art show together or meeting in a club for some dancing and talking. Janet thought those things would probably be fun except for the fact that all the people in the pictures on the web sites were young enough she could have been their mother.
Janet also was well aware of the fact that she didn’t look like she did when she was thirty anymore. She was forty-eight and past the age of bearing any more children and that change had affected her body. Her doctor said she’d reached that point a little earlier than some, but it wasn’t unusual. He said she shouldn’t look at it as the end of her sex life, but as the start of a sex life free from the worries of getting pregnant.
After Sarah was born, Janet’s breasts had expanded in size and didn’t seem to stop even after she stopped nursing Sarah. She was now wearing bras with “D” cups and with some bras she had to move up to a “DD” in order to feel comfortable. She was a little self-conscious about her breasts, but more self-conscious about what had happened to her hips.
When Janet was young she’d always been proud of having a tight bottom, but when she was pregnant with Sarah her hips got wider and they didn’t slim back down after Sarah was born. Janet wasn’t fat by any means, but she thought the combination of her wide hips and heavy breasts made her look that way. She told everybody who asked that Sarah’s dad had just been a jerk, but in her heart, she blamed her hips and breasts. The woman he’d been seeing had small breasts and tight hips.
She’d stumbled onto the ad for group dance classes while reading the newspaper during her lunch break at the office where she was a senior accountant. The ad said the class member’s age ranged from thirty to seventy and many were single. Janet thought about that for the rest of the day. Maybe Sarah was right. Maybe she should find a male friend, someone who would want to do things with her other than dance.
Sex didn’t enter into that thought at all. Janet had never had a strong sex drive, and the way she felt about herself had slowly taken away any need for intimacy she had left. Maybe there were men out there who were in the same situation, men who didn’t have to have sex to be with a woman. The next day, Janet called the dance studio and registered for the classes.
The first class had terrified her with all the steps she’d have to learn until one of the other women in the class told her the woman’s part wasn’t as hard as it looked.
“The man has to lead and all you have to do is follow. When he steps forward on his left foot, you step back with your right and vice versa. You’ll feel that because he’ll have one hand on your back and the other will be holding your right hand. It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
“All you have to do then is look sexy while you’re doing it. Most of the guys here will think you’re sexy as all get out. I wish my boobs were as big as yours. Then maybe I’d get to have sex once in a while with a man instead of with myself.”
The way the woman had talked had embarrassed Janet, but it also gave her a little lift. Maybe it would be easy and maybe men would want to dance with her. Maybe they’d want to…well, if that’s what they wanted, she’d just tell them she didn’t do that sort of thing.
When Howard asked her to dance that night, Janet thought about telling him no, but the smile on his face stopped her from doing that. Instead, she’d apologized for her lack of experience hoping that would turn him away without making him feel bad. When it didn’t, Janet had taken a deep breath, stood up, and held out her arms like she’d been taught.
The first few steps told her she’d made a mistake. Howard was so tall he was having trouble figuring out where to put his hands. When he bent over a little Janet felt really uncomfortable because his face was really close to hers. When he raised back up and pulled her in tighter, that was better, though Janet didn’t really like feeling her breasts bumping Howard’s stomach. What would he think? Would he think she liked that feeling? Would he think she was doing it on purpose?
Janet figured that was the only dance she’d get that night, and was stunned when Howard asked her to dance two more times. Both times were the same. Howard had pulled her in a little tighter than she’d been taught and she was very conscious of her breasts bumping Howard’s stomach when he moved forward.
After the third dance, Janet decided she liked the feeling of being