MAKE ME LOSE CONTROL
Erica Sloane
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Erica Sloane
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written consent of the Author.
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Also by Erica Sloane
EYES ON IT
THE BUYER’S AGENT
MOTHER OF THE GROOM
*****
Prologue
She stepped out of the shower, dried off and wrapped the towel around herself, covering everything from just below her shoulders to just above her knees. She looked at herself in the mirror for a minute, thinking she looked pretty sexy like this.
She felt his hand come from behind and rest on her shoulder. He pulled her back toward him and when their bodies touched, she could feel the hardness in his pants against her ass. She let out a little sigh and rolled her head to one side as his mouth came down on her neck. His tongue traced little circles, then up toward her ear and back down to her shoulder.
He kissed the back of her neck as he moved to the other side. She moved her head the other way to accommodate him.
She pressed back harder against him and could feel he was fully charged.
He turned her around, put his hands around her, lifting her up on the countertop. He immediately dropped to his knees and kissed her legs, starting with her calf muscle, going up to her knee, then down the other leg and back up.
He grabbed one of Sarah’s ankles and positioned her leg over his shoulder. He did the same with the other leg. She bent her knees and her legs opened for him.
He kissed up her thighs slowly, teasing a bit as he got closer to her pussy.
His tongue dragged around her—up, then down, making contact with her slick flesh. There, he made a slow trip around it, expSarahng. Going slower, then speeding up, still going in the same circular motion, before reversing course.
She reached down and ran her hands through his thick hair. Her head was back. She was letting herself float in ecstasy, her eyes closed and her lungs holding her breath—the senses of sight and hearing effectively turned off to heighten the sensation of this man making her feel like she was going to shake herself right off the countertop at any second.
Her hands stopped caressing his head and she grabbed a handful of his hair just as his tongue made its first full, uninterrupted contact with her clitoris. He started flicking the end of his tongue. She couldn’t see this, but she could feel exactly what he was doing.
His mouth closed around her stiff clit, making a tight seal with his lips. He started sucking.
The heat from the steamy bathroom wasn’t helping her much. She was already light-headed from this guy—whoever he was—sucking on her clit.
The insides of her thighs quivered and started to feel oddly hot and cold at the same time.
She was sure she had never felt this kind of pleasure before, such undivided attention from a man.
She heard a screeching noise.
Sarah’s head shot off the pillow.
“Shit,” she said out loud.
It was her alarm clock. She had been dreaming all of this. It was a dream unlike any she’d had in years. Not that she hadn’t had sexually charged dreams before, but this one affected her differently. As she moved to reach for the snooze button, she could feel the wetness between her legs. She tried to get back to sleep, but couldn’t, so she went to her computer and checked her messages.
From: SWMR86
To: HOUSESELLER
Subj: Just a compliment
You might not even want to talk to me but I just had to tell you that your pictures are gorgeous.
From: HOUSESELLER
To: SWMR86
Re: Just a compliment
Thanks. That’s very sweet of you but you’re way too young for me! Good luck!
From: SWMR86
To: HOUSESELLER
Re: Just a compliment
You’re welcome. I guess I’m supposed to give up now?
Chapter One
“Twenty-three?”
“That’s what I keep telling myself. What would he want with me?” Sarah Jennings asked.
“Gee, I wonder,” Kathy said, rolling her eyes.
The two friends were sitting at an outdoor café. It was early spring and the weather was perfect for an outdoor lunch. Except for the fact that the restaurants patio was a little too close to the street and more than once they’d looked at each other and shook their heads as they ingested exhaust fumes from trucks along with their salads.
“I still can’t believe you’re on there. I never thought you’d do it,” Kathy said.
“Well, look what I got. Three lousy dates and now someone who’s closer to my kids’ ages.”
They were referring to an Internet dating site. Kathy had found it, even though she had no use for it. She was happily married to a guy her friends regularly called a “prince.”
Sarah had been divorced for three years. Shortly after the judge declared the divorce finalized, she privately vowed that it would be a long time before she let another guy get that close to her heart. That is, if she was ever ready to do it again at all, which she still wasn’t sure about.
Kathy had stopped by Sarah’s office one day, which she did routinely, but this time she showed Sarah the site. Kathy thought it was hilarious and sad at the same time. Sarah felt a little sorry for the people who had been brave enough to bare their souls for the entire world to see. She wondered if they knew that some people, like her friend Kathy, saw them as comical.
After Kathy left that day, Sarah browsed back to the site and took a closer look. She did the same thing for the next two days. One night, after a few glasses of wine, she decided she was going to make a profile of her own just to see what happened.
Thinking about it now, sitting at the outdoor café and having lunch, she had to admit that what happened so far was pretty much a disaster. But this Drew guy was kind of interesting.
“The age difference isn’t that bad,” Kathy was saying.
“It is that bad. He’s twenty-three. I’m thirty-nine.”
“Did you write him back?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“I told him pretty much what I just told you,” Sarah said.
The waiter came by and refilled their drinks.
“Show me his profile.”
“No way,” Sarah said.
“Why not?” Kathy almost yelled that.
Sarah said, “I just want to drop it.”
“You won’t even show me his picture?”
“Nope.”
Kathy rolled her eyes. Sarah didn’t want to show her his picture. She knew Kathy would never drop the subject.
Sarah knew that even though she looked at the site for laughs, Kathy really did want her to try the site and go out on some dates. Sarah thought that because Kathy was married and completely faithful to her husband, she still had a wild imagination and probably wanted to live vicariously through Sarah’s adventures.
Sarah had been out on three dates. She had told Kathy all about them and they had their laughs, especially at the expense of one guy Sarah referred to as “The Wreath.”
Sarah had been thinking that it might be time to implement the three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule.
Kathy wanted to know more about this exchange with the young guy named Drew. “Okay, so you told him he was too young. Then what?”
“That’s it.”
“Oh, how hot! I’m getting all steamy over here.” Kathy jokingly fanned her face with a handful of napkins.
“Tell me about it. It’s the best interaction I’ve had with a man in a long time,” Sarah said, sighing.
She was only half-kidding. Okay, she wasn’t kidding at all.
But she didn’t feel like thinking about that right now, and she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She knew one sure way to change the subject. “Anything crazy happen at work lately?”
Kathy worked as a 911 dispatcher and always seemed to have a weird story. “Last night was pretty slow, except for the accident on 273,” she said, referring to one of the main roads that went through town. “People were calling in and complaining about the traffic delay. It was all I could do not to tell them that their delay was nothing compared to the two people who were life-flighted to the hospital. Some people are so selfish.”
A server came by with refills for their drinks and asked how they wanted their check.
Sarah said, “I’ll get it.”
“No, you got it last time.” Kathy looked at the waitress. “When you come back with it, hand it to me.”
When the waitress left, Kathy gasped. “Oh! I almost forgot. Talk about crazy calls. This old man called last night and said he needed help getting his car unlocked because Bernice was stuck in there with the kids and didn’t know how to unlock the door.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes, but wait.” Kathy took a sip of her diet soda. “I’m asking him questions—where he is, how long Bernice has been in there, stuff like that—and then I ask him if Bernice is his wife. I’m thinking she was, but you never know. Get this. Bernice is his parrot.”
Sarah almost choked on her salad. “What? His parrot?”
“Yes, an actual bird. His bird was stuck in there with the keys.”
“So what happened?”
“I sent a unit over there and they used a slim-jim to get the door open.”
“Poor old guy,” Sarah said.
“Poor Bernice.”
They laughed and a moment or two passed before Sarah turned the conversation back to the dating site. “I don’t know if I’d even meet someone from the Internet again.”
“What does that mean? ‘From the Internet.’ It’s not like these guys are from a different planet. They’re on the Internet because people don’t meet other people like they used to.”
“Okay, Miss Rational. You know about my three dates. Are you telling me you’d keep doing it?”
“If I wasn’t married? Maybe. It depends.”
“Depends on what?” Sarah said.
“On how hot they were.”
They both laughed, trying unsuccessfully to keep the noise down.
Sarah shook her head. “I just don’t know about that site. I’m not going to cancel just yet, but from what I’ve had happen so far, it just doesn’t seem like it’s for me.”
*****
Drew Bryant sat in class, not even trying to pay attention to the professor, who was droning on about some kind of rock that Drew had already decided he didn’t care about. He was on track to graduate even without this class. He signed up thinking a low-level geology class would be an easy A, but it turned out to bore him more than he’d expected.
He was in grad school, having come back to college after a couple of years out in the workforce. He still worked—in the summer, he lifeguarded at a pool and taught swimming lessons; during the school year, he was a paid graduate assistant coach for the swim team. All of this despite the fact that he didn’t need the money. He just liked to work.
Most of the time he found himself surfing the Internet during this class, which is exactly what he was doing this morning: looking at ESPN.com, checking his email, and instant messaging with one of his friends.
But that only took up so much time. He decided to go back to that dating site and check out more profiles. When he logged in, he saw that he had two messages waiting. Both were from girls who could easily be in the class he was in. They looked like they were cut from the mold that was used to create “The Typical Female College Student.”
He’d had a few girlfriends over the years. He had what it took to get the hot girls and he took advantage of that luck. Those relationships had just kind of fizzled out. Nothing dramatic, no major blowouts. Just the usual college and right-out-of-college dating scene drama.
The girls were hot and the sex was hotter, but Drew was getting tired of girls his age.
Drew’s interest in older women was, like many young men’s, something that went back to his teen years. It was all fantasy. He never acted on it, and none of the women he fantasized about showed even the slightest interest, of course.
Some of them were teachers, others were friends of his parents, especially a woman named Nancy. She was the same age as Drew’s parents and had two sons a little younger than Drew. They lived next door and sometimes, when Nancy was laying out by the backyard pool, Drew could see her from his bedroom window if he positioned himself at just the right angle.
She usually wore a black one-piece bathing suit, which was kind of disappointing. But once, a late May day when Drew had stayed home from school, he saw Nancy laying out by her pool, getting an early start on her tan before the summer.
And this time, she didn’t have the straps over her shoulders. The one-piece bathing suit was held up by her big tits. She sat in a half-way reclined position, reading a book. Drew watched this for about fifteen minutes, hoping beyond all hope that every teenage boy’s dream would come true and he’d get to see something. Nancy was repositioning herself on the lounge chair and Drew caught a glimpse of her nipple. At least he thought he did. Either way, it was enough to make him cum as he sat there stroking himself.
Mostly, though, it was the moms who went to the same pool in the summer that populated his fantasies. Drew was on the neighborhood pool swim team from age nine through eighteen, before going off to college on a swimming scholarship.
During those summers at the pool, especially the last few, he had noticed himself looking more and more at the moms. More than he was looking at the girls his own age, actually. He had girlfriends then, too, and they were his own age. The older woman fantasy was just that—a fantasy. All look, no touch. But he did a lot of looking.
He was more attracted to the bodies of those moms. He wouldn’t realize it at the time, but a lot of what made them carry themselves so well was their confidence level. Some of them just knew they were hot. Some thought they were, but not so much.
Being a teenage boy, though, all of this was over Drew’s head. What caught his eye was, quite simply: the moms had bigger boobs than the teenage girls; the moms had fully developed hips and legs with more shape. After all, they were women.
The “all look, no touch” situation didn’t stop Drew from fantasizing when he returned home from the pool each day. He would get home, go immediately to his room, strip naked and jack off visualizing the moms at the pool.
As he got older, though, he realized that there was more to his attraction than the physical draw. He had found it easier and more interesting to talk to older women, but as usual, the ones he got to know were either his parents’ friends or his teachers, so there was a slimmer than slim chance he’d get anywhere with them. And his few ventures out to places to meet older women made him think they were all either married, dating or didn’t have the guts to admit they’d be attracted to a younger guy. So it was all fantasy, especially at the pool in the summers of his youth.
And speaking of pools, class was ending so he was off to swim practice. One last check for messages on the dating site. Nothing.
*****
The next morning, Sarah had breakfast with her kids before they left for school. Her sixteen year-old daughter, Emily, wasn’t really big on the idea of playing chauffeur to her fourteen year-old brother, Michael, who was now a freshman at the same school. It was somewhat of a battle each morning between the two but this morning, much to Sarah’s relief, they were out the door a little earlier than usual.
That gave her time to go for a walk. She put on her walking clothes and shoes and went out the front door. It was a somewhat cool and gray morning, overcast but not looking like rain. A touch of moisture hung in the still air and dew covered the lawns.
She got only two houses down before she heard Millie calling her name. So much for the walk, she thought.
Millie was the oldest neighbor on the street. She was also the one with way too much time on her hands because she always seemed to know everyone’s business. She had a way of inserting herself into every situation that was going on in the neighborhood—everything from neighbors disagreeing over the location of a fence or new trees to divorces and even what the neighborhood kids were up to.
She was like a walking, talking neighborhood tabloid rag.
“Morning, Sarah.”
Sarah looked up to see Millie sitting on her front porch. She waved and tried to keep going.
“Got a minute?” Millie sat forward in her wicker chair.
Crap, Sarah thought. A minute, sure, but with Millie it was never just a minute.
She made her way up the sidewalk and onto Millie’s porch. The old woman sat with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She wore her hair in a tight gray bunch, close to her head. She held a newspaper, and Sarah thought she must be one of the few people still subscribing to the print version. It was beyond Sarah why anyone would pay for news that was at least twelve hours old when you could read updated versions free on the Internet. She chalked it up to a generational thing.
“Morning, Sarah,” Millie said again. “I just realized that sounds a little like ‘Morning Glory” especially if you say it fast.”
“Sure does.” Is this why the old woman had called her up to the porch? To tell her she’d come up with a rhyme?
Millie asked her if she’d like a cup of coffee. Sarah declined, adding, “I was just heading out for a walk.”
Normally a person would have said something like “Don’t let me keep you,” but Millie didn’t operate like a normal person.
“Do you know the Cathertons?”
Sarah said she did.
“They’re having some problems. Now, I know you had a few problems yourself the last couple of years but nothing like this.”
Sarah could never remember why she or her neighbors put up with this woman. She didn’t want to hear what was happening with the Cathertons. It was none of her business and she only knew them from block parties and saying hi at the store, things like that.
She really wanted to get back to her walk, too, so she decided to fill Millie’s head with a totally false rumor that would push the Catherton story right off Millie’s front page.
“I doubt they can top my story, Millie. Really.”
“Oh, honey, you have no idea what—”
Sarah cut her off. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to let it get out?”
“Of course.” Millie’s eyes widened.
“What happened between Steve and me…it wasn’t really a divorce. Everything you heard about him cheating was a cover story.”
“Oh my. Go on.”
Sarah was happy to go on. “This has to be kept very hush-hush.”
“You can count on me.”
“It was all a cover story because Steve needed to move on to another job. He’s in the C.I.A.”
“The C.I.A.?” Millie said it in a whisper.
Sarah nodded and pursed her lips, like she’d just revealed a grave secret. “I can’t go into why he was stationed here. All I can tell you is it has something to do with someone else who lives here who might be a double-agent and is spying for the North Koreans.”
“That’s horrible. Did he catch the spy?”
“I can’t say. Millie, I really need you to keep this quiet. I just figured you should know the truth about Steve and me.”
“I won’t tell a soul.” Millie sat back in her chair. She gazed out at the street and Sarah saw her eyes moving from house to house, probably wondering which one was home to a spy.
“I better get back to my walk.” Sarah stood up.
“Right, you go on ahead.”
Sarah made her way back to the street and when she started walking briskly, she had a smile on her face. Everyone was tired of Millie butting into everyone’s business, from big things to trivial. Sarah would never tease an elderly person under normal circumstances, but Millie kind of had it coming.
When she got back, she made a cup of tea, toasted a half of an English muffin and logged on to her computer. She checked her email and found nothing but junk mail. She resisted going to the dating site.
She’d checked it a few times last night and ended up deleting them because they were either from men old enough to be her father or from guys who cut out all the b.s. and started right in on the sex talk.
It wasn’t that she was a prude, but there was just something about a total stranger introducing himself by asking about her bra size or, even weirder, asking her to share her innermost sexual fantasies. And then there was the occasional guy who thought it was a good idea to introduce himself by attaching a picture of his penis. What did they expect? That women would see a picture like that and respond: Woo hoo! Let’s go, buddy! Seriously, she would think, try to keep some of the mystery alive.
She clicked around to some of her usual sites and was bored in a matter of minutes. She was about to log off when she noticed a new icon on the screen. Some kind of chat program. She clicked on it and immediately a box appeared on the screen showing some rather juicy gossip. Sarah recognized some of the names. Emily was really dishing it out. She and some of her friends had a big chat going about some girl named Aubrey who, according to Emily, was “a total slut.” The other girls agreed wholeheartedly. Sarah noticed how kids wrote just as they spoke, using the word “like” more than anyone really needed to.
She also noticed how some things never change. She remembered having similar conversations in high school with some of her friends. The only thing different now was that these girls were putting it all on the Internet.
Sarah suddenly felt like a voyeur so she closed it.
It was those two extra minutes on the computer, when she should have been logging off, that led her back to the dating site. What the hell, she figured.
She opened the page, went to her inbox and saw the last message Drew had sent her. “I guess I’m supposed to give up now?” He really should give up, and she really should have just let him give up, but he was cute and she had to admit that she was somewhat curious about where he would take this if she kept talking to him.
She wrote: “I didn’t say you had to give up. I just don’t know what you would want with me. I’m sure there are some really cute girls your age just beating down your door.”
She sent the message and immediately regretted it.
Chapter Two
After swim practice, Drew went home, took a shower and heated up some leftover pizza, the foundation of a young bachelor’s diet.
He lived by himself for the first time in his life. He’d had enough of roommates and no privacy. It would cost him more, of course, but he had saved money from his summer job lifeguarding and his part-time work as an assistant coach for the college swim team. Drew had plenty of money in the bank but he preferred to leave it there, for the most part.
Drew finished off the pizza while watching a few mindless minutes of TV. Judge Judy was berating a landlord for not fixing a broken walkway. Boring. He went to his computer, pulled up the dating site and saw that he had a message from Sarah.
How am I going to handle this? he wondered. Yes, there were girls his own age who were interested in him, but the attraction wasn’t mutual. Was Sarah testing him? She had already made one reference to their age difference, but he hadn’t said anything about that.
All he asked was whether he should give up. Now it looked like she was saying not to give up, but not in so many words.
He thought about it for a few minutes and decided: Just go with it. He wrote: “I guess you have a problem with my age. It’s ok. I’m not going to tell anyone you’re talking to me! I’m kind of tired of the ditzy Barbie doll girls my age. Plus I have always been attracted to older women.”
That’s all he needed to say about that. Maybe it was a good answer, maybe not, but the more he thought about it the more he thought he needed to add something so she would be more likely to write back.
He wrote: “Have you found anything good on this site yet?”
Okay, not a great question, but at least it was a question. Maybe she would feel compelled to answer it. After not writing him back for a day or so, he was pretty sure she was done with him, but then he got this message today. She was keeping the conversation going, for whatever reason.
Or maybe she was just being nice. He had no idea. All he knew was that judging by the two pictures she had posted on her profile, he was definitely attracted to her. She hadn’t written much in her “About Me” section, but she did say she thought it was easier to get to know someone in conversation so she would rather do it that way than writing a big boring paragraph about herself.
Drew’s “About Me” section didn’t contain much either, but that’s just because he didn’t feel like filling it out. He had written that he loved the water and that he was a former competitive swimmer who was now an assistant coach for the college swim team, and that he was in grad school for marketing. He’d written that he had recently bought a guitar and was trying to teach himself, but it was going slowly. But that was all he’d posted about himself.
He sat there for a minute, looking at her picture, wondering if he should include more in this email but decided against it. He sent it the way it was.
Sitting there in just a towel, he gazed at her profile picture, then clicked on another one. This one showed her chest. Drew thought she looked awfully perky for someone about to turn 40. Maybe it was the bra. Whatever the case, the sight of her was getting him turned on. The towel, which was tied around his waist, got tighter as his cock got hard. He reached down, released the towel, let it fall open and sat there for a few more minutes before leaning back and imagined that his hand on his cock was Sarah’s.
*****
Kathy stopped by Sarah’s office later that morning with two large cups of coffee and a few scones.
“We always have coffee in the lobby.” Sarah selected one of the scones from the bag.
“Not Starbucks.”
“It is Starbucks. I buy their bags of coffee and Kate makes it every morning.”
Kathy shook her head. “Not the same.”
“Coffee snob.”
It didn’t take long for the topic to turn to Drew.
“He’s going to say he has more respect for older women, or something like that,” Kathy said.
“I don’t know what he’ll say.”
“Of course you don’t. You just wanted to keep him on the line.”
“The line…” Sarah frowned and shook her head, not quite getting what Kathy had meant.
“Yeah, the line. Like a fishing line.”
“I’m not fishing, and there’s no line. I was just being friendly,” Sarah said, instantly wondering whether what she had said was really true.
“I’m sure he wants to get friendly with you. Real friendly.”
Sarah laughed. “Will you give it a rest?”
“You might not be able to keep up with him.”
Sarah looked at her friend in disbelief. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What, have you forgotten how young guys are when it comes to sex?”
“Actually…yes, I have,” Sarah said. She hadn’t been with a guy that age since her husband was that age.
“Maybe it’s time for a refresher.” A wicked smile spread across Kathy’s face. Then she said, “You know, even if you did date him, you’d have to shave it.”
Sarah didn’t say anything.
A voice from just outside her office door said, “All the guys these days pretty much expect it.”
Sarah looked up and saw Kate, a recent college graduate she had hired to help her out around her real estate office. They hadn’t known she was nearby, much less within earshot of the conversation they were having.
Sarah blushed, not at the topic of conversation, but at Kate knowing she was thinking about going on a date with a guy who was closer to Kate’s age than her own.
“The first time you do it, go really slow.” Kate seemed full of advice.
“Thank you. How much did you hear?” Sarah hoped it wasn’t much.
“Not much,” Kate said, and Sarah felt a little better. At least until Kate said, “But if you’re going to go out with a guy in his twenties, they liked shaved. Trust me.”
Great. So she did know.
Sarah thought about that dream she had. Was she shaved? She couldn’t remember. Probably not. She looked at Kathy. “And how do you know this?”
“We just got digital cable. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff you can order.”
Sarah laughed. “Hey, I trim the bushes.”
“That’s nothing,” Kate said.
“Gotta be bald. I actually like it.” Kathy’s widened her eyes when she said it.
“You do it?”
“Yep. Surprised Roger on our last anniversary.”
“And?” Now it was Sarah’s turn to be intrusive.
Kathy's eyes narrowed as she smiled. “He was all over it like we were nineteen again.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
“Nice,” Kate said.
“I don't know about that,” Sarah said.
“Do it,” Kathy insisted. “You’ll like it. And so will college boy.”
Kate laughed and repeated, “College boy.”
“First of all, ‘college boy’ is in grad school, and he’s twenty-three. And second, he isn’t going anywhere near it.”
Sarah had thought about this before. Not the shaving aspect, specifically, but about the idea of dating again. She’d been with the same guy since she was fifteen, and he was her only sex partner. Now she was almost forty and twenty-five years had passed. She had no clue how to get back into the game again.
A few months before her thirty-ninth birthday she vowed to turn a page in the last year of her thirties, going into her forties. But birthday number forty was coming up and so far this year she had done nothing to move in a different direction. It was occupying her thoughts more and more lately.
After her divorce, she planned to be very picky when (or if) she ever dated again. She was now pretty jaded about men. The man she had trusted for almost twenty years turned out to be the guy who's also screwing someone at the office. It was such a cliché.
She had denied herself the enjoyment of male companionship for three years.
It wasn't even about the sex. Her only sexual experiences had been with her husband, whose sexual adventure rating on a scale from one to ten was about a two. And that was only because one time he made eye contact with her during their lovemaking.
Sarah had lived a life almost completely devoid of true sexual pleasure—other than when she was by herself, conjuring up fantasies of being ravished by an impossibly gorgeous hunk.
If Kathy was right, this young guy who was now sort of pursuing her couldn't be after more than that, could he? That made her a little self-conscious but the more she thought about it, it was actually pretty flattering, a reaction she hadn't expected out of herself. And maybe a little sex is what she needed right now.
For the rest of the day at the office, her thoughts mostly revolved around the idea that she might be at a turning point. Then she’d snap back to reality and remind herself that coming out of her hardened shell would take a lot more than being flattered.
Chapter Three
“Drew!”
He turned around and saw who was calling his name. It was Ashley, a girl he had gone out with twice. Ashley was a senior in college, three years younger than Drew, and physically, well...Drew just asked her out because she was hot.
Their first date was an outdoor movie at the art museum, where people gathered on the incline of a slight hill with their coolers and picnic baskets and watched films projected on the side of the building. It was something Ashley had mentioned that she liked doing, so Drew figured it would be a good place to go.
It wasn’t.
They were there a total of five minutes before Ashley gasped and actually almost shrieked. When Drew asked her what was wrong, she told him that her ex-boyfriend was a few rows ahead of them and he was with another girl.
So what, Drew thought, you’re here with another guy.
He didn’t say it, though. He just let her vent, which turned out to include the fact that this had been what she called “our place.” She went on to tell Drew just about the entire history of her relationship with the guy, whose name Drew forgot early on in the tirade.
Disaster. A first date and it’s all about your date’s ex. What’s that all about?
A few days passed and Ashley called him up, apologizing for her behavior. She admitted that it wasn’t right, and blamed it on the wine, which was barely opened by the time she started angrily telling the story.
Drew accepted her apology—he really didn’t care all that much, it being a first date—and she suggested that they try again.
For some reason, perhaps out of pure boredom, Drew went along with the idea.
It was St. Patrick’s Day, so they decided to go out to eat and then to an Irish-themed bar. Drew had been there last year with some friends. They all had a good time trying to dance to music provided by a live band that played somewhat authentic sounding Irish music.
At the restaurant, Ashley had eaten a salad and a bowl of soup that looked to be mostly clear liquid. She hadn’t fortified herself for a night of St. Patrick’s Day celebrating, and it showed later.
“That bitch,” Ashley said, referring to the girl her ex was now dating. “I bet she doesn’t even give good blowjobs. Do you know?”
Drew said, “Do I know what?”
“Huh?”
“You just asked me if I know. And it sounded like you were asking me if I knew if that girl gives good blowjobs.”
“What? I wasn’t asking that,” Ashley said, slugging another mouthful of Guinness. “I really get into it, too. One time I was drinking and I almost bit the tip off, though.”
Drew cringed at that, without responding. He’d had some bad experiences before, but nothing like that. He almost started to ask her what happened after that—what did she mean by “almost”—but he decided to let it go. He didn’t want to know.
Ashley didn’t seem to care that he didn’t want to know. They both sat there and took in a minute or two of the music.
Ashley took another big sip of her Guinness and said, “You want one?”
“No, I’ve still got almost a full one here,” Drew said, hoisting his beer bottle.
Ashley laughed and said, “No! A blowjob, silly.”
It isn’t often that a guy turns down something like that so quickly, but that’s exactly what Drew had done. Not the he deserved all that much credit—even he would admit that later to friends.
It was more of a no-brainer. Girl tells a story about drinking and almost biting off the tip a penis. Girl offers blowjob.
No, but thanks all the same. That was basically the gist of Drew’s straightforward decline of the offer.
He hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
But now here he was, standing in the courtyard just outside the library, with this oddball girl coming toward him.
“Hey,” he said.
“What happened to you?”
“When?”
“You know when,” she said. “You never called me again. I called you a few times but always got voicemail. Rude.” She wasn’t really mad. She said it with a flirty smile and a friendly punch to the shoulder.
“Sorry. I’m just so busy. I hardly ever go out,” Drew said, which was only half-true. He was really busy, but he still found time to go out. Mostly with his guy friends, though. At this point, he had already grown a little tired of the girls in his age group. Ashley had just kind of pushed him over the line on that issue.
“That’s cool. I understand,” Ashley said. She looked like she had bought his excuse without any doubt at all. “You seeing anyone?”
Drew paused and lied: “Yeah. I kind of am.”
This didn’t mesh well with his excuse of being too busy to do anything socially, but Ashley didn’t put that together either.
“Well, call me sometime. We can hang out!” She seemed very excited by the prospect.
Drew wondered: Didn’t she just hear me? I told her I was seeing someone. This girl couldn’t catch a clue with a shrimping net.
“Sure, sounds good,” Drew said.
Why bother? Just leave it at that. If he ran into her again, he’d just use the same story.
*****
The next morning Drew got home from swim practice and took a shower, eagerly anticipating logging on to the dating site to see what Sarah had written back. It was the first time he had ever revealed that he had always been more attracted to older women. He had no idea what to expect, but he hoped she didn't just read and delete.
After drying off, he wrapped a towel around his waist and went to his computer. He pulled up the dating site and saw that she hadn't responded to his last message. There was a feature on the site that showed if a message had been read and it said that Sarah hadn't opened it yet.
As he was looking at that, an icon appeared next to her name, indicating that she was online. The icon was a chat bubble. Should he send her an instant message? He thought about it for a minute, then decided it might be too pushy to IM her this soon. He refreshed the page and saw that she had opened the message.
He finished getting dressed, grabbed a bowl of cereal from the kitchen and went back to his computer. She had written back:
“I definitely qualify for the ‘older’ part. Have you ever dated an older woman before? Why do you think you are more attracted to them? I am new to this website and have met a few people but nothing that had any promise. I have to tell you this is very flattering but you might be wasting your time. I’m still not sure if any of this is for me. But if you still want to talk tell me a little more about yourself.”
Drew wasn’t sure if she was playing hard to get or if she was just being honest. Regardless, she was still talking to him and had opened another door to more conversation. This was good.
He didn’t waste any time writing back:
“I’ve never dated an older woman. You’re the only person I’ve told about it. I just never had the chance to in real life. So to speak. Here I have nothing to lose, right? Getting shot down here would be easier. My attraction to older women goes back several years. I’m sure you don’t want the details. More about me…I’m in grad school. I’m an assistant coach for the swim team. I love the water. I lifeguard in the summers too. I’m into all kinds of music and I love comedy movies. I’ve been single for about 6 months. I’m not sure what else you want to know right now but ask me anything. Your turn. Tell me more?”
Chapter Four
That night after dinner, Sarah watched a little TV with Emily and Michael. Emily controlled the remote so they ended up watching American Idol, which Sarah was fine with. Michael, on the other hand, said it was stupid. He ended up watching about thirty minutes of it, though, before announcing again that it was stupid and he was going to his room to play a video game.
When the show was over, Emily said she was going to bed. Sarah went and checked on Michael, told him it was time for him to turn off the Xbox and get ready for bed.
Sarah went to her room and started to get ready for bed herself. A few minutes later, she was in bed with her laptop propped up on a pillow on her knees.
She was still logged in when Drew’s email arrived. She’d been on the Internet for about thirty minutes, relaxing, sipping some wine and reading gossipy news about the latest Hollywood star that landed in rehab after crashing their car into a Post Office.
She read his email and, feeling a little emboldened perhaps by the wine, she briefly considered emailing him back with her phone number.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she heard a chime and saw a small chat box appear on the screen. It was from Drew.
SWMR86: Hey, I hope I’m not bothering you.
HOUSESELLER: No not at all. I was just reading your email. How are you?
SWMR86: Pretty good. Thanks. You?
HOUSESELLER: Not bad. I was just going to look over some work but it can wait.
SWMR86: What do you do?
HOUSESELLER: I’m in real estate.
SWMR86: Really. Not such a great time for that.
HOUSESELLER: You got that right. Not so great lately.
SWMR86: Sorry to hear that.
HOUSESELLER: It will pick up again. Always does.
SWMR86: Hope so. So have you found anything good on this site yet?
HOUSESELLER: Not yet.
SWMR86: I just signed up.
HOUSESELLER: And have you found anything interesting?
SWMR86: I’ll know after this chat.
HOUSESELLER: Very clever! I like that.
SWMR86: How old are your kids?
HOUSESELLER: You had to bring it up huh? Not much younger than you.
SWMR86: Tell me.
HOUSESELLER: Daughter is 16 and son is 14.
SWMR86: That is much younger than me.
HOUSESELLER: Ok. Let’s just forget I said that. :)
SWMR86: Done.
HOUSESELLER: To be honest all of this is very strange to me. I never thought I’d find myself on one of these sites.
SWMR86: Me either.
HOUSESELLER: So what brought you here?
SWMR86: Honestly?
HOUSESELLER: Of course.
SWMR86: You want the beat around the bush version or the blunt version?
HOUSESELLER: Oh let’s see. I’ll take blunt.
SWMR86: I want to be with an older woman.
HOUSESELLER: I see.
SWMR86: Like I said in the email it’s been a fantasy of mine for years.
HOUSESELLER: So I take it you’ve never fulfilled this fantasy?
SWMR86: I’ve never been with an older woman.
HOUSESELLER: How do you know you would like it?
SWMR86: I don’t know if I would like it and you talked me out of it so I’ll let you go now.
HOUSESELLER: That was easy!
SWMR86: Ha ha. I’m just kidding. I’m always more attracted to them anyway. Have you ever been with a younger guy?
HOUSESELLER: Only when I was younger.
SWMR86: I take it you’re not into younger guys.
HOUSESELLER: I married my first boyfriend and I’ve been on three dates since our divorce. It’s been a long time since I’ve been into any guys.
SWMR86: That’s a shame.
HOUSESELLER: Not really.
SWMR86: So you’re not looking for anything?
HOUSESELLER: All depends on what it is. Not to be too forward but you basically just want to have sex with an older woman. Right?
SWMR86: I never said that.
HOUSESELLER: Well you didn’t really have to. But that’s why I’m asking.
SWMR86: I don’t know. I mean I know I’d like to do that. Yes. But I’m not saying that’s all I want.
HOUSESELLER: You’re full of it.