Jake took Michelle's hand as they walked down the hallway to her dorm room. The slim college freshman looked down, and demurely smiled at him.
He couldn't help but smile back. This charming young woman had touched his heart. And the date, their fifth, had not only gone well but had given them both the chance to open up to each other, sharing vulnerabilities and hopes, each of them a little surprised at their own bravery.
It was easy to be brave around Michelle, which helped Jake a lot. He hadn't dated in a while and had had a bad experience just two months ago. A crowded cafe had given him an unexpected tablemate, a confident, forward woman in her mid-thirties. She'd smiled broadly past her cellphone as she sat down.
Jake had had a chance to take a good look at her as she finished her phone call. She'd been dressed well, not office attire, but comfortable, stylish clothes, cheerfully bright but not garish, accessorized with a hint of panache that had made Jake wonder if she was an artist. Her hairstyle struck him as unusual, which he later realized it wasn't -- not for thirty-something soccer moms, but then the styles of many of the girls in his college classes would have been unusual, and age-inappropriate, on her. And if maybe she wasn't a corporate vice president, she had the air of a woman who could negotiate with one without being the least bit intimidated.
Her necklace had drawn his eye to her cleavage, and as she'd turned to the side, he got to see all angles of her breasts nestling against each other. They were large, and tanned, and they crowded together naturally, making his view quite enjoyable until she turned back and, he was pretty sure, caught him looking!
He'd looked down at his coffee until she hung up the phone, and then they'd taken up talking while they relaxed. She was, in fact, an artist, a potter, who'd worked in the town for years. But he'd only gotten started asking her about her work when she began asking him questions about himself, with genuine interest.
When their coffees were gone and she was still asking him what's-it-like and what-do-you-think, he remembered that there was such a thing as a "cougar" and that maybe a college senior had become prey. He was flattered. He was interested.
He'd stepped up his conversation a notch, and he grew sure her lean-ins and smiles were flirting. The two of them had had such a good chat that he'd asked if he could see her sometime. She'd paused for only a second before saying she was married, and when he looked confusedly at her left hand, she held up her pendant, which, he realized, was a diamond ring. "It's the clay," she'd said, "I only put it on my finger for special occasions. Sorry, hon."
At least she'd said she'd been flattered.
He hadn't even gotten her name, and that was the closest Jake had come to picking anyone up recently. Until Michelle. Who was so different. She was reserved, quiet, and on a bad day you might say mousy. She had feelings and opinions but he'd had to pry gently to get them out of her. She was an artist too, a dance major, only just a freshman, small, graceful, slender and strong. Dark hair and eyes. She wore slightly baggy clothes, even on their dates, so he'd guessed like many dancers she was insecure about her looks.
But he'd seen Michelle dance, in a leotard, and he was aware of what she must look like under those clothes, and the awareness was a fire within him. He'd had a dream, once, of performing ballet with her, grasping her hips between his hands and lifting her. No sex, just that one image, but he awoke instantly, devastatingly hard, and unable to sleep until he'd taken a nice constitutional and read a textbook for a while.
This date, the fifth, ended much like the first four. A walk to her door, then a few quiet words. The niceties about the date had become unnecessary: they both knew they'd had a good time, and they both knew they were more than just having fun. The kiss started tender, turned passionate, then the passion lasted longer than they'd expected. He laid his hands on her hips and gently guided her back against the wall, where he kissed her with all the ardor that had built up in him these long months.
She kissed him back, hard, first with a hint of tongue. Then as he slowly sucked her into his mouth, she surrended herself to her feelings, and their tongues caressed each other, intimately, like lovers: a preview of how their bottled-up desire would play out through other wet, sensitive places, and of the delight they would bring each other.
Then she withdrew, and looked down, and said she was sorry. When he said it was all right, she said she'd like to invite him in but she just wasn't ready, and sounded like she was about to tell him something important, but instead kissed him, fast, then loving, then fast again, and disengaged, and looked at him through the crack of her closing door, and then the date was over and he was walking home.
At some point on the walk, he inwardly swore, and thought "why am I dating a freshman?" -- longer to wait for sex to enter the relationship -- but erased that thought with a reminder that Michelle was really something quite special. Three years younger, but still: special.
TV, then tossing and turning until midnight. Then got up, room dark. A stretch of internet porn, a dick growing hard in his shorts, and a glum face as he pondered, and discarded, and pondered again, the idea of grabbing it, stroking it, and making a mess.
That just wouldn't have felt right to him.
Instead he dressed, and got in the car to drive his thoughts away.
Nowhere in particular to go. But getting off-campus, drifting under streetlights and past dark buildings, helped him forget the pretty brown eyes that were still looking at him through the closing door. Helped him try.
Drove through downtown, glancing here and there at brightly-lit gatherings of people -- a Starbucks, a bar with a patio. Drove under the gaze of office buildings, over the railway, through the industrial park. Drove a spell through not exactly a bad end of town.
Drove past the sex shop. And not one of the upscale ones -- the sex shop with no windows and no door on the sidewalk. But everyone knew what it was.
Jake remembered a block later that one of his gay friends had mentioned that there was a sex shop on Oakley Street where guys sometimes went to get a quick handjob when they were in the mood. He glanced at the next street sign: Oakley.
Well, wasn't that something.
He drove for quite a ways out of town, then told himself of course he would have to go back exactly the way he came, to avoid getting lost. It wasn't until he braked to turn into the parking lot that he'd decided.
Bored, the clerk examined his ID, took the cash and waved him in.
Head down, he pushed open the door and strode into the dark room.
Thumping music playing just loud enough to discourage conversation. Dim lights, barely there. Each wall lined with small alcoves, some the size of a large closet, some just a phone booth. Curtains hung only halfway down, enough, he realized with a start, to hide faces and little else.
A dozen men milling around. Half in their 20s, half older. Mostly white. Most looked... ordinary. Dressed unremarkably, looking average. Few direct looks. He scanned them all, quickly, furtively, not wanting to draw attention. Not yet.
