Montreal was a city in which there always seemed to be something exciting taking place. The weekend preceding July’s International Workforce Conference, a huge jazz festival had been held in the streets. The fourth and final day of Kathy and Tom’s conference was to coincide with Canada Day, which would bring with it a reported magnificent fireworks display.

Kathy was from Alaska. Tom was from Colorado. They had met just three days before Canada Day at their conference’s opening ceremonies. As presidents of their respective state workforce councils, they found themselves on some of the same boards and panels.

Ever since Tuesday, Tom and Kathy had chatted during breaks, mostly about how their respective states were working on the employment and training issues of the day. At the Thursday night banquet, following the food and speeches, Tom sought out Alaska’s table, shared with the Puerto Rico delegation, the site of next year’s conference. Due to Tom and Kathy’s rapprochement during the week, he commandeered a chair as soon as one became vacant.

“Beautiful gown, Madam President. It complements your eyes,” he told Kathy.

“And aren’t you dashing without your nametag, Tom?” she responded with a satiric Sarah Palin wink.

Tom made his pitch. “I was just thinking. We’ve worked hard all week, and the only thing we’re required to do tomorrow is the early business meeting. Why don’t we skip the closing ceremonies and take the walk you’ve been wanting? Unless you’ve made other plans, we could go to dinner early enough to catch the fireworks tomorrow night.” And with all the double entendre he could muster, he added, “A pleasant day away from the bean-counters, and we can leave this beautiful city with a bang.”

“Sounds devilishly intriguing.”

“I’ll give you time to change after the luncheon, come by your room, and we can sneak out the back in our walking duds?”

“No business suit and heels,” she said dreamily.

“Nope.”

Her mouth quirked at the corners. “You’re on.”

Prior to Kathy’s marriage, she had had but one serious liaison. She and her mother had booked a tour to New England to see the fall colors. During the tour, she and the tour guide became close. It probably wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t become ill for a couple of days. Kathy helped him with his paperwork for two nights, and on the tour’s final evening, she had slept with him. She expected it to end there, but he invited her to New York the following summer, and she’d accepted.

Paul had been on furlough between tour assignments and treated Kathy to four days in Manhattan. They did the sights and a show. He took her to interesting restaurants and to Central Park where she rode the carousel and shared the largest pretzel she’d ever seen with him. They also shared a lot of sex.

She knew Paul had many relationships, but it didn’t keep her from falling for him. He’d promised to politic for a tour to Alaska or the Great Northwest, but she would never know if he followed through because 9/11 happened the next fall, and Paul was one of its victims.

Kathy could only guess as to what might have been, but one thing her tour guide/lover had taught her was how much fun sex could be. Amour and playfulness could and should complement the heated passion.

It had never been as much fun after she married. Her husband was nice enough, but the heat of their romance soon faded, and there seemed little left but humdrum routine and too little joy. There was nothing lonelier than an unhappy marriage, she had discovered. And when it ended, it was a relief for both of them. She was thirty-seven now and had shied away from serious relationships since then, devoting herself to her job.

But there was something about Tom from Colorado that touched her, something she felt when they’d first met. She sensed a spirit of adventure in him her lost Paul had possessed. She liked the fact that he wanted to skip the conference finale to spend a day with her, and nothing sounded better than a brisk walk along the edges of this foreign city before returning to her routine and the safety of remote Alaska.

Tom liked conferences and conventions because they were usually held in interesting places such as this and because his occupation was in a field that tried to do something positive for society. Also, the best and the brightest usually attended. Among this year’s crop of people worth knowing better was Kathy from Alaska. She was smart and friendly, perhaps a bit on the reserved side, but Tom also knew still water could run deep.

She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but she had a radiance he found most attractive. When he had played football, he had access to several Barbie-doll types, but most were more hair and boobs than substance. When his blown-out knee ended that career path before having a shot at a fat contract, a multi-million home, and a Bentley, a saner lifestyle took over. He decided to use his business degree in program management. Certainly not a glamorous occupation, but one that didn’t depend on physical prowess or macho activities, and he was fine with that.

He had met an employment counselor at work who possessed obsidian eyes that shone like candles. She had a figure similar to Alaska Kathy’s with legs that went on for miles and ended up making a nice, well-sculpted little fanny. Within months they were living together. Their nights were unlimited passion—Al Green and Bob Marley records to accompany Jana’s spicy cooking.

A year into the romance, they were sitting at the kitchen table having morning coffee and laughing over a Garfield comic in the Sunday paper when Jana fell off the chair onto the floor. He could see the candle sparks had gone out of her eyes and they had turned to something as cold and dead as a doll’s eyes. The autopsy revealed she had a burst arterial wall in the brain. She was only twenty-four. He hadn’t dated much after that, but once in a rare while, he ran across someone who teased the funny monkey in his brain and captured his interest. And so it was with Alaska Kathy.

His conference hotel room had a Jacuzzi, a small perk for being the organization’s reigning regional liaison. As his forty-year-old body sat alone in the warm caldron, he wished he had taken a chance and invited Kathy up for a drink. It had been a busy week, and with the jets shooting warm water around his parts, he imagined Jana sitting naked across from him holding a glass of champagne while the upper swells of her breasts bobbed enticingly on the water’s surface. Then he superimposed Kathy’s countenance over Jana’s. He thought about Kathy’s slender legs attached to what appeared to be a tight little butt of her own. He pictured it wet, turning toward him, and played the scene out in his mind.

Kathy placed her hands on the edge of the Jacuzzi. “I’m ready,” he imagined her saying. Tom rose behind her and melted into her warm, wet, willing entrance. His manhood slid back and forth. He could almost hear her moan.

Tom groaned. His penis floated like a one-tentacle hydra and was starting to grow along with his imagination. He climbed from the tub and dried off, dowsing the fantasy. But sleep wouldn’t come right away, not with the vision of the wet woman from Alaska pressing his buttons. Kathy’s imagined sugarplums danced in his mind later than he would have liked, but it was a pleasing image nonetheless.

After lunch the following day, Tom and Kathy snuck out of the conference as planned and to their respective rooms determined to spend the last afternoon together in the pursuit of fun and relaxation. When Kathy reemerged ready for a stroll, her hair was tied back in a ponytail. There were freckles across the bridge of her nose underneath a light tan. She wore a sleeveless button-up blouse, khaki shorts, and tennis shoes. Her arms were smooth and brown, and Tom wished he could touch her. The ensemble hugged the soft curves of her body, but it was her smile that captivated him. It was big and dazzling. No one had smiled at him like that for a long time.

“Are we ready?” Kathy asked.

“As ready as the law allows. Let’s beat feet before we’re commandeered by one of those western states and get dragged into something that’s no fun.”

“Lead the way.”

They found a bike path along the St. Lawrence River. They walked and talked. They breathed in the scent of the city as if they had been trapped underground and starved for air.