One night stand changes her life. A bit sappy, but hopefully inspirational. I try to keep it PG, but if not let me know.
Her name is Claire Walker. Sue and her work as insurance claim representatives in the same hospital in Long Island and share an apartment. They both have four weeks of vacation each year and lose any vacation time if not used within their anniversary dates. They both have two weeks unused with Claire’s expiring at the end of the month and Sue’s expiring the end of next month. There are four more weeks awaiting them at the expiration date, but why lose a benefit was their reasoning.
They are both fans of the movie Titanic of any version but the most resent with DiCaprio and Winslet is their favorite from their childhood. They both dream of taking a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean on a ship similar to the Titanic ending in England then they could fly back to the New York. They planned the trip in three weeks with them leaving before Claire’s vacation weeks expired and because they are leaving on vacation before the deadline, she could use both weeks even though the second went beyond the deadline.
The ship leaves from New York City Friday evening of the 22nd and travels for eight days across the ocean arriving in London on the first of the next month. This allows them week to explore London and they fly by jet to New York two week later on the sixth. They report to work the following Monday thus making the most of their two weeks.
Arriving at the harbor, they see their ship and fall in love with it at first sight. It reminds them of the Titanic in it grandeur, style, and overall appearance. The view of the ship offers even more promise to this being the trip of their dreams. However, most people with the time to take a ship across the ocean are retired or nearing retirement. There are a few couples in the forties and fifties, but most are retired. The only promise of someone their age are newlyweds on their honeymoon and they did not see much of them for obvious reasons.
Dinner are varied and untimely the first night with them getting a snack around ten at night. Saturday morning, they wake to breakfast and then Sue has an uneasy stomach. As the day progress, the uneasiness becomes a constant nauseous stream that does not leave her. Unable to eat her lunch, they see the ship’s doctor who gives her Dramamine for the seasickness.
By dinner, Sue is very hungry and they try to find a table in the dining room for the first sitting of guest. The next seating is not for an hour and a half and the hostess asks a kindly old man if they could join him. Pete agrees to have them for dinner and they place their orders. Pete is a retired engineer who worked on many projects throughout his 40-year career. Upon Claire asking, Pete tells them of several famous building he worked including his first project of the twin towers because there was a flaw that might effect it during a storm. He cited several other prominent buildings some known and some were not.
After dinner, the two women tell of their career, which they see as not as glamorous, but he is quite interested.
Sunday starts with breakfast then a church service for those who care about such things. They found the ship has a library, entertainment shows, and many things to keep them busy. However, they have dinner with Pete every evening with new topics for every meal. The voyage has everything two women want in recreating the Titanic feeling. The only thing missing is the incredible dresses and ballroom gowns worn in the movie.
Friday, their last full day of the trip saw some turbulent weather and the Dramamine is not helping Sue with her seasickness. Pete and Claire eat dinner alone at their usual sitting on the last night of their fantastic voyage. The conversation switches to a more personal level with just the two of them intimately talking. Claire asks him about his late wife and he goes into great detail of their life together. They miss forty years of marriage by a month before he lost her suddenly from staph infection that no amount of antibiotic would cure.
After dinner, they meet in a lounge where he asks Claire about her private life. She tells him about not having any men in her life. “I only seem to find shallow men seeking sex and they take their longings to the next women once they sedate their urge with me. The last couple of months, I have sworn off dating because it is a waste of time and energy.” Then, Claire asks Pete “What is wrong with me if men only want me for sex and why can I not find a man to love me the way you loved your wife.”
The discussion turns into a deep personal discussion which is more than Pete wants and he thinks carefully about his answer. “Although, your attire this evening is jeans and a shirt, the rest of the week you wore silky dresses showing of your boobs and butt. I admit the dresses are pleasing to the eye and men will respond to your outstanding representation, but what are they seeing. They observe your boobs and butt while your uniqueness hides behind a great looking body. By advertise your body instead of you, men respond to your advertising accordingly.”
Pete is clear to say he is not against women dressing to their feelings, but wants Claire to understand her attire affects how the world sees her. Pete wants recognition as a professional and wears suits to the office and proper work clothes to job sites. Pete reminisces, “An adage states a man takes the ostentatious dressed women to the clubs on Saturday night and takes the modest dressed women home for dinner on Sunday.” He indicates it is a rather chauvinistic adage and is absurd, but there is a grain of truth in it.
The theme of their discussion shifts as they order another round of the delicious wine. As the evening rolls into night, they have several glasses of wine and they are tipsy. Then out of nowhere, Pete asks Claire to spend the night with him, which the question immediately embarrasses him and he starts retracting his request saying he had too much wine. However, the thought already crossed Claire’s mind and she said yes before he withdrew his offer.
They walk hand in hand to Pete’s cabin since Claire’s has another occupant already there in bad health. After the sex, Claire starts dressing in order to leave him and Pete pleads for her to stay the night. Then she remembers he exposed earlier in the evening that he misses having his wife sleeping next to him. He misses the security from the sound of another person softly sleeping with him in the same bed.
Claire’s previous relationships conditioned her to leave because the man either departed or asked her to leave directly after having sex. Pete’s motives are selfish for wanting a sleeping partner to spend the night, but it was new to have a man ask her to spend the night.
Claire goes to the bathroom and using the designer toiletries supplied by the cruise line cleans her face for bed. Before returning to the bed and removing her clothes for the second time, she calls Sue to tell her the chicken has left the coop, which is their signal to let the other know they are safe but not coming home. Crawling into bed, Pete cuddles with her for some time before falling sleep and a minute later and then Clair falls into a deep sleep.
The next morning Claire wakes to his gently hands softly stroking her bare shoulder as it is quite warm with two people in bed. There is something inviting about this wakeup call with a caring man and she began longing for a permanent person someday. After ordering breakfast for them, Pete offers to shower with Claire since breakfast will take more than a half hour. Accepting his offer, she replies, “I could use my back washed” and he suggests washing her front as well.
Claire feels exceptional when he meticulously washes her whole body including her hair with the designer shampoo and conditioner.
The breakfast arrives shortly after the amazing shower and as they eat it half-naked. Pete is staring at Claire’s face when he asks, “Why you wear so much makeup. It does not make sense because you was so pretty without it.”
Claire explains her mother coached her to use makeup and have worn this amount since the age of twelve. Pete admits, “I discovered while dating that women who wear a lot of makeup usually were concealing a lot of ugly.”
Claire asks about blemishes and he replies, “Beauty and ugly come from within shining out. Makeup makes it difficult to determine if a woman holds beauty or ugly in her heart.”
He mentions their conversation from the night before when Claire asked why do men treat her so badly. Pete ponders, “Men that will treat you with respect tend to shy away from women who paint their faces not allowing them to see the nature of the soul. Real men want to see real women without makeup concealing every imperfection so they can determine their heart. Self-centered men do not care about the heart and prefer not to know their conquest to avoid emotional entanglement. If real men cannot see the soul of the woman, they avoid any problems by not making contact with her.” Then he apologizes for being too forward and Claire asks him to continue because he was being honest about his observances.
He continues “The longer the time from meeting the man to sleeping with him correlates well with the length of the relationship. The couples I have known in the past that boasts a good sex life divorce within years and the couples who possess good communication are still married today.”
Asking him if she should wait six weeks, he said “The men of your past would not wait more than a week or two before finding something easier. At six weeks, even the nicest man cannot be sure of his intensions, but the man who waits six months or a year only does so because of love.”
Sue knocks at his door looking for Claire at ten in the morning of the last day and Claire is wearing only his shirt. Seeing his room, Claire knows it will take him about a half hour to pack but with all her stuff, it will take a couple hours. Claire reluctantly departs from his cabin never to see Pete again.
Claire requires the time to finish packing before the ship docks. From the moment Pete’s door closed with Claire leaving, she misses his honest attentions paid to her that morning.
Claire and Sue spend a wonderful week in London visiting many of the tourist spots and finding a few of the local favorites. Their plane leaves Friday morning and arrives in New York just two hours after they take off on an eight-hour flight. Sue goes to sleep as the jet climbs into the blue sky while Claire contemplates Pete’s wise counsel into her existence.
Trying to see the flaws in his theories, she argues men have changed since he was young, but this argument is not valid because the men of her past act as he predicted. Then she studies the prospect of changing her lifestyle to meet his conceptions of romance and wonder if the change would make a difference.
Upon reaching home, there was a message from Claire’s mom that she was leaving her fourth husband because they could not live together anymore. Claire’s mom conceived makeup as beauty of a woman and taught her without makeup she was not beautiful. Her mother slept with men on their first date directing Claire to follow in her impulsive example of satisfaction. Then her mother would marry the man after a month if they stayed the night. She is the prime example of everything Pete said causes marriage and relationships to fail. Claire followed her example except for allowing the men to stay the night or marrying them. With this latest news from mom, it is time to try something else even a half-baked idea from a lonely old man.
On Monday, the first day back to work Claire wears no makeup and comfortable clothes similar to the forty year old married women working their office. Still looking professional in an office setting, but the dress is not revealing, the face is plain, and hair is styled simply. Sue asks Claire about her stark appearance and they decide Claire is excessively far to the plain side. The next day, Sue helps Claire with the makeup with just a little bit to highlight her features without covering who she is. It took several months to change her wardrobe to modest style from the glitzy of the past.
Rashad is a young doctor at the hospital and needs help getting his patient’s insurance through for payment. Where he spent an hour on the forms without success, Claire finishes within a couple minutes successfully getting him paid. As Claire explains his options for the future, the young doctor fixates on her eyes as if he is in a trance. Not once did he examine at her boobs and lick his lips in anticipation as men in her past life routinely did.
As Claire was leaving that night, Rashad is waiting to see her because he cannot get her beautiful eyes out of his mind and if he does not ask her out his patient would suffer for it. Claire cannot let his patients suffer because of her and they agreed to go out that weekend. Within a few weeks, Rashad her to meet his mom, which is another new happening in her life. Now dating for six months, Claire understands Pete’s sage advice for life for they are falling in love with good communication and affection between them.
I am not agreeing with your view about women wearing makeup. If the woman feels comfortable in her dress and her makeup there is NO REASON for her to change just because of a person's view over a one-night stand. If makeup and dresses can make a woman more confident about herself, by all means, use them! It's her own body, she can do whatever she likes. If a man doesn't like her just because of her makeup and the way she dressed then the relationship is a disaster to begin with. The man HAS TO like a woman, makeup and all flaws, to declare his love for her. Men should NEVER try to change a woman for being herself!
Far from sappy, your story as a rather "flat" character about it. Very detailed description but little emotion or conversation to carry the action. It reads almost like an article with straightforward, point to point chronology leading to a prescription for middle-aged single women. It rings true, but from a man writer?
You seem to have your plurals wrong. Perhaps you deleted all the…'ses… and then forgot to replace them with single ses. I didn't know that it takes a transatlantic cruise ship eight days to sail from New York to London. Thought it would take less time sailing 24 hours a day.
Like I've been told about my stories, this story would be much better with a complete overhaul, perhaps by a excellent editor that would cost you.
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