They say that men are supposed to reach their sexual peak in their late-teens. If that's true, Mick Jackson must have been a late bloomer. His own sexual "peaking" didn't really begin until he was in his late-twenties--thanks largely to Nicole. Now, more than a decade later, he still hadn't noticed any signs of slowing down, either. Nicole wouldn't let that happen. As Mick lay in bed watching her dress for work, a little shudder ran through him. Today was Nicole's thirtieth birthday, and it was almost frightening to think that her sexual peak might still be ahead of her. He felt his limp member begin to stir beneath the sheets as he watched her primping before the mirror, thinking ahead to the surprise he'd planned for her that night. Who knows, he thought to himself, maybe he'd get a glimpse of Nicole at her peak in just a few hours....
Michael Jackson (who preferred, for obvious reasons, to go by his nickname, Mick) and Nicole Chapin (who became known to everyone as Nick) met in college. She was a 19-year-old sophomore at the time, and he was a 28-year-old graduate student. Since they were both in the theater and drama program, their paths crossed regularly, and it hadn't taken more than one or two such crossings for Mick to notice her. Of course, a lot of guys noticed Nicole Chapin.
She was tall and slender, with the lithe figure of a fashion model. Her breasts were on the smallish side, some men might say, but her long, shapely legs and perfect ass more than compensated for that, in Mick's view. She had straight, dirty-blonde hair that hung down to her shoulders, and she often wore it in a kind of "peek-a-boo" style that enhanced her exotic facial features. Nicole wasn't what you'd call "cute" or "pretty" in the all-American girl sense. Her mother's side of the family was from Scandinavia, and Nicole had inherited her mother's strikingly beautiful Nordic features. Even though she was only nineteen, her cool, casual beauty and elegance made her seem mature beyond her years.
Seeing her in the halls on her way to class or hanging around with other students in the theater building, Mick quickly became entranced by this young woman. Of course, he'd never have a chance with her, he told himself. In addition to the difference in their ages, there was also the difference in their backgrounds.
Like most of the undergraduates at this university, Nicole came from money. She was raised in the East, where her daddy was CEO of an international chain of resorts, hotels, and restaurants. Nicole had been educated in the best private schools, had traveled the world, and wanted for nothing--including boyfriends, it appeared to Mick. Wherever she went, there was always some buffed up stud or a pretty-boy actor/model type sniffing around her--rich, good-looking guys closer to her own age and social class.
Mick, on the other hand, was raised in the Midwest, with a blue-collar background and a public school education. After high school, he did what most of his buddies had done: gone to a state college, married his high school sweetheart, and got a job. For five years he worked as an English and drama teacher at a high school near his hometown, during which time he and his wife began to drift apart. After a few half-hearted attempts to repair their relationship, they finally divorced, and Mick decided it might be a good time to make some other changes in his life.
He'd always wanted to go to graduate school, thinking it might be more enjoyable and challenging teaching college instead of high school, and he wanted to get away from his hometown. On a lark, he applied to the best graduate program he could find. He was surprised when they not only accepted him, but also offered him a teaching assistantship. So he quit his job, packed up his belongings, and headed east. Now, here he was back in school again after all these years, trying to survive on his meager stipend, suddenly "unattached," and surrounded by bright, young, attractive women.
Now if only he could only figure out how to approach one of them....
Like most divorcees, Mick found it awkward trying to get back in the dating game. He hadn't been on a date or had sex with anyone but his ex-wife since he was 17. Even though he was still a young man, he felt old-fashioned in comparison to these younger kids, with their seemingly more casual approach to dating and relationships and sex.
Not that he was opposed to such things. In fact, he thought it would be good for him to "play the field" for a while instead of jumping right into another serious relationship. He'd been "good" for too damned long, he thought. Since he hadn't sown any wild oats when he was in his teens and early twenties, as a lot of guys do, he wanted to make up for lost time. The only problem was that he wasn't quite sure how to go about it.
He hadn't been around single women in so long that they often seemed like an alien species to him. He didn't know how to ask one out for a date--hell, the last "date" he'd been on was in high school--and he certainly didn't know how you got one to go to bed with you. He got along well with one of his fellow graduate students, an attractive brunette named Sara, and they'd gone out together several times for a drink or a bite to eat. But you couldn't really consider those "dates," he reckoned, since he hadn't called her up or brought her flowers or got dressed up or any of the other stuff he remembered from high school. She was definitely a girl, and she was definitely a friend, but he couldn't tell if she was interested in being more than friends--which is to say, interested in having sex with him. Mick just couldn't read the signals she was giving him. Hell, he wasn't even sure whether she was sending signals!
Consequently, he didn't realize that there were a number of young women in the theater program who were becoming interested in Mick Jackson. Being an unattached, heterosexual male was enough in itself to make him attractive to some of them, since the ratio of straight females to straight males in the program was about 3-to-1. And then there was his age, which made him attractive to those coeds who had grown tired of the "boys" their own age. Even his being divorced was a potential asset, in the eyes of the romantically inclined, for it meant that he had suffered and would be all the more grateful to a woman who could appreciate him and take care of him. Finally, there was his talent.
During his first semester, he had landed the title role in the university's production of "Cyrano de Bergerac." His performance was the talk of the campus, especially among those would-be Roxannes in the program who began to attribute to Mick all the romantic qualities of the character he was playing. Even Cyrano's famous physical deformity worked to Mick's advantage. Mick didn't have a buffed-up bod or pretty-boy good looks like many of the actors in the program. It's not that he scared small children or anything, but he wasn't the guy most girls noticed first in a roomful of GQ model-types. He was of average height and average weight, with average brown hair and eyes, average looks....
But after seeing him onstage, women suddenly began to notice him for the first time. Some of the bolder ones would stop him in the halls to introduce themselves and compliment him on his performance, and the girls in his Theater Appreciation class were starting to pay more attention during his lectures. Near the end of the fall semester, auditions were held for the major spring production, "The Taming of the Shrew." Everyone assumed that the role of Petruchio would go to Mick--but the competition for the role of Kate was fierce.
On the morning after the auditions, Mick went to check the casting board. He was fairly confident that he had landed the leading role, but he was curious to see who would be playing opposite him. He stopped short when he saw Nicole standing there looking at the cast list. He didn't know she had auditioned for the show, and his heart began racing as he tried to think of something clever to say to her. The thought that she might be in the play with him made him weak. But what if her name wasn't on the list? He might come off sounding like a jerk if he tried to make a joke. Maybe he should just play it cool, treat her like graduate students normally treated sophomores--which is to say, ignore her....
Before he could decide, Nicole suddenly turned around, almost bumping into him and startling them both. "Oh!" she laughed, placing a hand coyly on her breast. "It's you!" She smiled and looked down, her cheeks flushing, then held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Nicole--Nicole Chapin."
"Uh, hi," Mick replied numbly, shaking her hand. "Mick--Michael--Mick Jackson."
"Yes, I know," she smiled. "I'm glad to finally meet you."
