What is it about a wedding?
Here I was, seriously contemplating doing just about the stupidest thing it is possible for a man of 75 to do. But it was a wedding. Emotions were high. Pheromones filled the air. Alcohol had a hold of me along with the tetrahydrocannabinol from the lollypop one of this group had offered me. Okay, I was the odd combination of drunk and stoned that I hadn't been for at least two decades.
My son was married for about five hours now, and my daughter, unmarried, seemed to be a pretty good mom. My duties were done and I was enjoying retirement.
After the post-wedding party, I was flattered when one of the guys from the old neighborhood invited me to join the group heading to
Eddies
for an after-party party. So I stupidly said "Yes."
Now here I was, pretty drunk, very stoned, being propositioned by a girl that I wasn't sure had a driver's license.
"Come on, Grandpa," she said, they were all calling me "Grandpa," "Say yes and you'll be, like, the oldest dude I ever hooked up with."
Christ, it was like when I was stationed in Japan and only understood about a quarter of what was said even as I studied the language carefully. I think it was probably that throwaway word "like" that got to me the most.
"Show me your ID," I said.
Her eyes got big and then she started giggling as she opened a little folder she had attached to her cellphone and handed me her driver's license. I looked, did the quick mental math, and found her to be eighteen years and three months old, making her almost exactly one-quarter my age.
I smiled and said, "Ummmm, Margie, I don't think it would be a good idea."
"What are you? Gay," she asked.
I laughed, "No, Honey, I'm seventy-five."
"Oh my God," she said, all big eyes and white teeth, "You're like, totally ANCIENT!" the last word spoken with a rising note in her voice.
Okay, I'm not going to try to put in all of the "like," and "totally," and "awesome" throwaway words that peppered her speech like a weird form of Tourette Syndrome. Just, like, assume that they are, like, totally there with, like, every awesome utterance falling from her like totally, awesome pouty lips.
I chuckled, took a drink from the Guinness I had stupidly ordered - Christ, how DO the Irish drink that crap - and said, "Now that's the way to an old man's heart, Margie, calling him ANCIENT," trying to mock her tone on the last word.
She giggled and rubbed my leg, high on my inner thigh, and then, cat-quick, moved and ran her tongue deep enough into my ear canal that I could hear an odd crackling sound.
"Come ONNNNNN, Grandpa," she said, that tongue, warm and wet, tracing the shell of my ear, "LIVE a little."
"Margie," I said, hating the little whine in my voice, "I'm married."
"Better," she whispered and I felt the word as a little puff in my ear, "That way you won't get stupid and decide we should get married or something."
It was funny, in a way, almost like one of those out-of-body experiences you read about where you're floating and just watching yourself. I could feel my resolve weakening under her assault. I could almost feel my 15 years of faithfulness surrendering.
Christ, I WANTED her.
I think what put me over the top was the image of my wife, Paula, at home, nursing her arthritis and putting on a few more pounds every month. I looked at Margie again, tall for a woman at 5'8" or so, just a bit under my 5'9" (what used to be 5'10" but, well, gravity always wins in the end), lithe and thin, an athlete of some kind. She was wearing a T-shirt with a logo for some band I didn't recognize on it. The fact that she had no bra on was obvious with the little points that, well, pointed at me. I guessed her at about a hundred pounds. She was that slender. She was, in other words, the precise, mathematical opposite of my wife.
"Margie," I said, but she kissed me before I could go farther, drawing whistles and "ooooooooohs" from the group.
"Please, Phillip," and it was the combination of how completely focused she was on me, ignoring the others, and the use of my name that put me over the top.
I finished my Guinness, grimacing at the taste, stood, smiled at the group, and said, "I'm done in. Thank you all for a very interesting evening. It's been fun."
I went into the bathroom for a final pee before leaving and for the chance to scribble her a quick note.
I laughed as I peed, shook, washed my hands, and then got the little pad and pen that I still always carried. Well, that I always carried when I wore a shirt with a collar. I lived mostly in T-shirts these days, but when I put on one of my button-down Oxford cloth shirts it was just automatic to drop the little pad with its pen into my breast pocket. After four decades of living with the damn thing with me at all times, well, old habits die hard.
I scrawled a quick note.
Margie - I'm flattered.
Yes, if you're still interested.
1234 Smith Street
5678 code
Wait 15 minutes then come.
If you don't, well, it was fun.
Grandpa.
I tore the note out of the little notebook, folded it, feeling oddly silly like I was passing notes in third grade or something, and went out for final goodbyes.
"Thank you all," I said, moving from person to person, shaking hands or kissing cheeks depending on sex. At Margie, I kissed her cheek, drawing more of those "ooooooohs" from the group who hadn't been oblivious to our little play, and slipped her the note with all of the grace of the third grader I once was.
The drive in my oversized Ram 2500 pickup should have taken about three minutes. It was only a few blocks to my little Airbnb. In my state though, I was being extremely careful, driving slowly, stopping completely, and carefully looking both ways before proceeding. And then I missed a fucking turn and had to stop and re-enter the address into my GoogleMaps app and then follow the blue line.
But I survived, unticketed and unwrecked.
She was waiting for me when I walked in.
She was standing in the middle of the front room, the first room you walked into in that little shotgun house, as naked as the day she was born with a glass of water in her hand.
God DAMN she looked good, even though my tastes had never run to skinny women. Her arms were thin, the elbows the biggest parts of them. Her legs were thin, her knees the biggest parts of them although her calves were well-developed and shapely. Her breasts were tiny, I doubted that she filled out her 32A bra, with very pink areolas, tightened into cones, and slightly darker nipples. Her ribs showed. The hollows inside of her hip joints were deep and distinct.
But all of that was secondary to where my eyes focused.
She was absolutely smooth between her legs. Her labia were full and smooth and the slit of her sex was just that, a fine line separating those outer lips.
"You like?" she asked, closing the distance between us.
"You're beautiful," I said.