I've always found my wife's friend Susan attractive. She is now in her late 50's, and I had known her for about the last 15. She is smart and funny, a little extroverted, and physically you might describe her as uncomplicatedly feminine: no noticeable makeup, petite but a little curvy; and with wavy, medium-length graying hair and blue eyes, magnified by little round glasses. As my wife's best friend, she was comfortably out of bounds for me, but I certainly enjoyed her visits and she played into my fantasies regularly. Her husband Alex was a similarly bright guy, a little older, and much more aloof than any of the rest of us. It's almost as though Susan was his interpreter, and it was very unlikely that we'd see him socially if Susan wasn't part of the group.
Susan and Alex lived about 20 blocks away. Susan and my wife Darla usually met at a coffee house midway, but frequently visited each other while running out errands when they didn't go on such adventures together. Sometimes Susan would stop by our house before Darla returned from work, and I enjoyed every minute. They also traveled out of town together, usually on train rides to New York or occasionally to the mountains. Alex and I were usually invited to the mountains, but the New York trips were strictly girls' weekends. We don't have kids, but Susan and Alex have a son and daughter that always went on trips to the mountains, but when they became teenagers we saw them less often.
About three months ago Susan and Darla went on one of their weekend trips to New York. On that Friday I dropped them at Union Station at about 4pm and waved them off from the train station waiting area. I didn't plan anything for the first night -- preferring to just eat, drink and watch what I wanted, and then go to sleep when I wanted. I somehow got motivated to redo my office, and had just finished vacuuming when there was a knock on the door. When I opened, there was Jenny, Susan's daughter. She walked right past me saying, "I'm pissed that my mom and Darla wouldn't include me on their girl's weekend and didn't want to sit around the house so I came over to make you dinner." I don't think I managed to say anything for the first 30 seconds; I just followed along behind her into the kitchen.
Jenny was always an interesting kid. She didn't get in trouble like her older brother Chris, but always seemed to be a challenge. She transferred to a special school, but despite being very bright, didn't want much to do with school. She dropped out at the end of 9th grade with a perfect GPA, but had to wait six months until she was 16 to complete her GED and enroll in the community college. But by the time her age peers were graduating, she had completed two years of college and was set to begin her sophomore year at a nearby university, again with a 4.0 GPA. She had a mixed confidence: she had a strong value system and was extremely confident of her intuition and ability, but extraordinarily reserved. "Shy" isn't the right word; she didn't care enough to engage others unless they made her angry. As a younger teen she had matured early, and always wore very baggy clothes. She was also always pale, and had a rough time with acne, so I imagine that she simply worked within her strengths and chose not to seek social and fashionable venues that would have been important to many other teenage girls.
But this night Jenny was looking and behaving very different. She wore a blouse that matched her eyes, which I hadn't really noticed before, and tighter fitting pants. Her blouse was unbuttoned and showing just a hint of cleavage. I was nearly finished with a beer and kind of put it to the side, when she said, "Don't open another, I brought a bottle of wine from my parents' fridge to share with you."
I probably had my mouth open, not sure what to say, when she suddenly stopped, looked up at me and said, "Don't worry John, this will be fun. I'm a good cook!" I just nodded okay while babbling some affirmation.
As she unpacked her grocery bag I could see it was going to be some sort of crepes and was playing along with curiosity. I was also absorbing this young woman that I had really never noticed before. She was also very chatty, which was probably the most unusual thing about this encounter. I could tell a lot of this new Jenny was because of feeling excluded from being part of something she had been looking forward to: the New York trips. I was little surprised at how familiar she seemed in our kitchen, and after an initial effort to help I decided it was better to stay out of the way and watch.
But just as she pulled a large saucepan down from the hanging rack, she looked my way and caught me staring at her chest. I quickly looked away as she just blurted out a curious, "Huh!" and she broke into a condemning smile, I went to open the wine to avoid confrontation and blushing openly.
The planned dinner was prepared with short-order cook efficiency and it seemed we were eating within 20 minutes of her arrival. We talked about all sorts of things, and the conversation flowed, jumped, hopped, and returned. She was very good company, and for someone well over twice her age, I held my own in keeping her engaged. She had been sitting in the chair next to me rather than across from me while eating. She got up to get the wine bottle and offered to pour more in my glass. As she did I noticed an extra button on her blouse had been unbuttoned. This time she caught me and there was no escape. I simply said, "Sorry, this is a very different evening than I had planned and both surprising and enjoyable. "
"I'm enjoying this too," she replied, "and I hope it wasn't too to awkward the way I barged in." She continued, "I was unraveled earlier when I saw that they were already gone without even responding to my asking to join them, and I was even crying on the way over here. When I got to your door I took a deep breath and just decided to entertain you while I entertained myself, and forget about them."
"Well you're doing very well," I said. We can download a movie or just keep talking. She let out a modest, maybe practiced, two-syllable giggle and led me to the living room.
She sat next to me on the couch and the conversation wandered into new areas. She talked about boyfriends and disappointments, and even a suspenseful story in which one of her older brother Chris's friends, with whom she had a casual relationship, suddenly came up to her room and began forcing her into an uncomfortable situation when Chris was hosting a drug binge in their home. It ended without trouble but served as a wakeup call about her relationship with her brother.
Perhaps to switch gears or lighten the conversation, she asked me about my early relationships. I told her about the big ones of a year or more, the often-embarrassing outcomes, and the heartbreaks. I talked about the way I, as a representative of many guys, stumbled through the combination of physical and emotional intimacy, and how there was not only no one to prepare me for that, like most guys I didn't really have anyone with whom I would have wanted to talk about it.
"Well, tell me about the physical part. And how you learned about those things," Jenny asked.
I didn't delay, "I think in my first two relationships, I was matched with someone similarly inexperienced. It was often embarrassing with lots of important questions unasked and unanswered, but in both cases things clicked and we found routines that were good for both of us. But it was very much amateur hour, and although I might have worried about it back then, I look back on that time verrrrry fondly."
"Later, in my 20's," I continued, "I met a woman who was about seven years older who had me figured out early. She just told me what to do, and it worked, so I listened and learned. Her name was Analia, and I knew she carried around a lot of emotional baggage, but I think that made me care about her even more. Because we were in different places in our lives, and I later learned that I was a rebound relationship for her, things went well. It was like an extended summer romance, where you knew it would someday end but both decided to fully enjoy it while it lasted. But things deteriorated when she had to be away for two semesters for her residency, and we had trouble renewing things at the same enjoyable level. We both had little flings with others, and neither of us had enough interest to put everything back together."
I had been talking about that relationship for over 20 minutes, and kind of staring forward rather than making a lot of eye contact. When I looked over at Jenny, who at this time was sitting just inches away, her eyes were kind of dreamy and focused on my lips. I know I gave it a brief thought, but when she sensed my hesitation she smiled, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Do you think you can get me and my car home safely?"
Ice broken, yes, but there would be no mess to worry about. We cleaned up a little, went outside and I drove her car to her street, parked a few houses up, exchanged thanks and knowing smiles, and then I walked over to the 7-Eleven where I knew there were always cabs available.
