by Kelly Myers
He stands up, and I blush furiously at the sight of him. He’s completely unashamed of his body as he picks up his discarded clothes. And why would he be ashamed? His body is gorgeous. It’s firm and warm and now I know exactly what it feels like atop mine.
He disappears into the bathroom, and I chew on my bottom lip as I realize he’s discarding the used condom. I’m glad he had one on hand. I’m a medical student, after all. I know the many dangers of unprotected sex.
I never imagined myself needing one without warning, so I never went out and got any.
On the few times I bothered to imagine what my first time would be like, I never would have thought it would be like this. I figured it would be a tame and methodical story. I would start dating someone who was roughly the same age as me and had similar interests and was on a similar life path. We would go out to dinner and meet up after class, and eventually we would become boyfriend and girlfriend. Then, after more time getting to know each other, we would decide together it was time for sex. I would have time to go on the pill, and we might even plan the night out. I don’t know. I’ve never had sex. That’s how I assumed it would be.
Nate was anything but planned. There was no discussion, no methodical lead-up. It just happened.
I’m startled from my thoughts when he emerges from the bathroom, fully clothed. I flush as I realize that I’m still totally naked beneath my sheet. I try to stay cool and collected, but despite my best efforts, I instinctively clutch the sheet closer to my chest.
I see Nate observe the moment, and there’s a flicker of something I can’t read in his eyes. Pity, maybe? Or awkwardness?
He strides over to the bed and sits on the edge. I’m baffled by how comfortable he is.
But of course, this isn’t uncharted territory for him. Nothing abou the post-sex interaction is foreign ot him. He’s probably done this dozens of times.
“You sure you’re not hungry?” he asks.
I blink. The words take a long time to reach my head. I’m pretty sure he’s talking about food, but when he looks at me with his furrowed brow and chiseled chin, my brain just seems to make everything sexual. For a moment, I think he’s asking if I’m hungry for him. Which, yes, I am.
But I’m also confused. And a little bit in shock.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I say.
He nods once and stands up. I can tell he doesn’t want to push me or crowd me. He’s actually thinking of me and putting me first. It makes my chest throb with emotion.
“I’ll see you around,” I say.
I shift my legs as if to get up, but he holds up his hand. “I’ll get myself out, don’t worry about it.”
Then he turns, scoops up his toolbox and leaves.
I’m left wondering if I fell asleep and dreamed the whole thing.
But no, the peppermint scent of him lingers on my pillow. I won’t even be able to fall asleep, not when every inch of my bed holds a memory of how Nate touched me.
Of how he made me scream and beg for it.
After it’s been a few minutes, I roll out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. I pull my bathrobe around me and stare at myself in the mirror.
My cheeks are flushed, and my dark hair is tousled and tangled. My eyes are wide, as if I’ve seen something I can never forget. I reach up and touch my lips. They’re full and swollen from his kissing.
I take a deep breath. Bit by bit, I exhale.
I need to adjust to the concept that I am no longer a virgin. I have had sex. In fact, I had sex with an older man. Who is also my landlord.
The landlord part, I’m not that concerned about. I know Nate wasn’t taking advantage of me, and he’s been so respectful for so long, there’s no way he’s been planning this. I know he didn’t give me the apartment in the hopes that we would have sex. I don’t feel like he preyed on me or anything.
When I replay the conversation, I was the one who initiated. I asked for everything that he did to my body. I know I could have stopped it at any time, but I didn’t want to. A smile creeps across my face. Thank God I didn’t stop it. No matter what happens with me and Nate, I’m glad my first time was so positive. So erotic and pleasurable.
It wasn’t awkward either, which I thought was a given with first times.
It’s just this part that is awkward. I know a lot of people, especially college students my age, will hook up with someone on the weekend and then act like it never happened when they see each other that morning in the cafeteria.
I wonder if that’s what Nate expects. This will just be a memory, a secret episode that will fade as we resume a normal landlord-tenant relationship.
Or maybe he wants this to be a habit. Maybe he wants to swing by every now and then to have a repeat performance. I don’t know how I feel about that. On the one hand, my stomach thrills at the idea of being in bed with him again, but on the other, I don’t think I’m a casual hook-up type of girl.
I shake my head and exit the bathroom.
I need to figure out what I want before I know how to interact with Nate the next time I see him. I flop on my bed and stare at my ceiling.
All of a sudden, the urge to giggle overcomes me. I clap my hands over my mouth as I laugh.
Just a few hours ago, I thought this was the worst day. Nothing was going right, and I was grumpy.
And now...well, it hasn’t been such a bad day after all.
Chapter Ten
Nate
By ten at night, I have a crick in my neck from turning to look across the driveway to try and see Cynthia’s apartment. Every few minutes, I feel the need to check if her lights are still on, or if she’s moving about. I can’t see the window to her bedroom or anything sketchy like that. Just the window to her living room.
The light is on, but nothing much seems to be happening.
I force myself to retreat to my own bedroom on the other side of the house. I don’t want to be this creepy guy, trying to catch a glance of her in her private space.
I almost turned around and went back into her apartment as soon as I left. She said she wanted space, and I respect that, but I also don’t want her to be alone after such an intense event.
She looked so uncertain and young as I said goodbye. She wasn’t unhappy or scared per se, but her mind was clearly whirring. Of course it was. She just lost her virginity to her landlord who’s twice her age.
I run my fingers through my hair and collapse into my bed. I know I won’t fall asleep easily, not tonight.
I keep thinking if I should text or call, but I don’t want to bother her. Cynthia is the type who likes her alone time. She needs to mull over what happened, maybe talk it out with a friend.
Although I don’t relish the idea of what some college friend is going to say to her about sleeping with an old man like me.
My stomach churns at the thought. Cynthia had sex with me, and yes, I was her first, but she’s young and free. She could easily decide to sow her wild oats. Which of course, I support.
But even so. I want her in my bed, not in the dorm bed of some college guy who won’t even know how to fuck her right.
My shoulders are tense just at the thought.
I don’t do relationships. I don’t really go on dates, and I don’t believe in or want anything long-term. But I’m still a man. I’m still affected by what just happened between me and Cynthia.
It was amazing, and I want more. I wanted more as soon as it was over. While she was dozing, I was tempted to wake her up by kissing her and touching her, but I resisted that urge. I knew she would want some time to process what happened.
I can give her time. But I don’t think I can give her up. I’ve fantasized about her, and today I got a taste of her. She’s like a drug that’s worked its way into my system.
I can’t even think about the divorcee I was considering hooking up with now. Not after what Cynthia and I just shared.
I let out an involuntary shiver as I remember how she called me Daddy. I’ve done role play before
, but not that specific scenario. I’ve never had sex with a woman that much younger than me. I liked it though. I liked how much she trusted me, and how she let me have control. In a way, her ceding control seemed to allow her to let go of all her fears and inhibitions and enjoy it.
In my arms, Cynthia was different. She didn’t seem in her head or like she was overthinking. She just let herself feel and followed my orders.
It was afterwards that she started to think again. She started to get uncomfortable being naked, and I could see lines of worry entering her face. She got self-conscious after.
She wasn’t self-conscious when I told her to undress. In fact, she seemed to enjoy stripping before me. The way she looked at me as she pulled off her shirt – I’ll never forget it.
I know Cynthia too. Sure, we don’t sit around and have deep conversations about our life stories, but I’ve gotten a sense of her as a person over the last two years. She has such a good head on her shoulders, and I know she’s a good judge of character. So the fact that she wanted me meant something. I felt chosen, in a way.
There was something electric about our physical connection. It’s not because she was young or because it was her first time. It was something about her. I’ve had good sex before, but nothing that incredible the first time I’ve slept with someone.
I think back to my ex-wife. Lianne and I had physical chemistry for sure. In retrospect, it might have been all we had. But even the two of us had to work our way up to it. It wasn’t amazing right off the bat. Part of it had to do with how young we were, but looking back, there was also a lack of trust.
I used to get jealous. It wasn’t just that I would worry that Lianne would cheat on me, I was possessive of her time as well. When she spent too long away from me, I worried. She didn’t trust me either. She was always accusing me of lying or dodging questions. If I didn’t tell her every detail of my day at work, she would say I was hiding something. I don’t think either one of us was a bad person, we were just young. It was our first serious relationship, and we were so unsure about so much in our lives, that we clung to each other. We clung on too hard. It would have been helpful for the both of us if we learned to let go as well. To trust. No good partnership can be formed without trust.
It was an issue inside the bedroom as well. I was hesitant to fully reveal my desires to Lianne, and she sometimes held things back from me in the bedroom.
Cynthia, on the other hand, gave me complete trust, just like that. It’s a sobering thought, really. What have I done to earn that kind of trust? I’m not sure, but I want to live up to it.
I lay down in bed on my back with my arm underneath my head. I don’t even want to compare Cynthia to Lianne. They are two different women from two different parts of my life.
I’m different too. I know what I want and how I want to be. I’m not going to throw everything away to rush headlong into a commitment.
Neither is Cynthia. If I’m willing to bet, she’s not really looking for anything long-term either. Not with me, anyway. She graduates in about two months, and then she’s moving to the city for med school.
A sly grin overtakes me. So maybe we could have some fun. No strings attached. No talk of the future. We could just explore our connection. I imagine late night meetings with Cynthia, and I get carried away considering everything I can teach her.
Then the image of Cynthia clutching her bedsheet to her chest, her eyes wide as she told me she was fine, surfaces in my brain. I can dream about “no strings attached” all I want. It’s not realistic. People get feelings. Young people get feelings.
I suppose I could get emotionally invested as well. I’ve kept all women at arm’s length since my divorce, but I have to admit, I’m not as poised with Cynthia.
Something about her worms its way into me. I want to take care of her. I want to just be with her.
If she had said the word earlier, I would have gladly spent the rest of the evening with her. I wouldn’t have wanted sex, I would have been happy to just make sure she was ok and share a meal. I squirm with discomfort at the thought. The last thing I need is to get attached.
In fact, I shouldn’t be thinking about myself at all right now. I should be thinking about Cynthia and how to best approach her. I definitely don’t want to act like normal. I’m not going to pretend like nothing happened, and I’m definitely not going to resort to pretending to take the trash out whenever she’s coming and going.
We need to talk about what’s happened. Or rather, I don’t need to talk about it, I’ve been around long enough that I know how I feel and what I want. Cynthia is younger and less experienced. She’ll need to talk, and I want to help her with that. I’m happy to be communicative. We can talk, and then we can have more sex. That’s my agenda.
I wince. I probably shouldn’t use the term “agenda” with Cynthia. It makes me sound heartless and calculating.
It’s just that now that I’ve experienced her once, I’m willing to do anything to have her again. And again.
It’s sudden and a bit strange, so I know it could get tricky. I mean, if one of my guy friends told me he was sleeping with a twenty-year-old chick, I would tell him to stop being a sleazeball. I know how I sound when I insist to myself it’s different with Cynthia. I sound like some man hitting his mid-life crisis who is drowning in self-delusion.
I shake my head. Mid-life crises are for men in unhappy marriages. And that’s at least one good thing from my disastrous early marriage: I dodged the bullet of hitting my later years stuck in a miserable union. In a way, I was lucky to get it out of the way early. It was a hard lesson, but I learned it.
I decide that I’ll have to be honest with Cynthia. I’ll be upfront about who I am: an older man who wants to have mindblowing sex with her, but has sworn off serious relationships. I’ll give her tonight and tomorrow to mull things over, and then I’ll reach out so we can talk. I refuse to play games with her. I’ll say my piece. She can take it or leave it.
I grit my teeth. I need her to take it. I want her so badly that my body is physically aching.
I turn off my light and close my eyes, but it’s a long time before I actually fall asleep.
Chapter Eleven
Cynthia
I daydream all day at school. It’s not like me, and my friends notice. Becca keeps trying to whisper to me in our western medicine history elective, but I keep zoning out. I’m not even focused on the lecture, which Becca clocks right away.
After class, she grips my arm as we wander through the quad.
“What is up with you?” Becca whispers. “Are you stoned or something?”
She giggles because she knows I would never be stoned, especially during a school day. Then again, stranger things have happened. Like me losing my virginity to my forty-year-old landlord. I confirmed his age. I figured based on a time he referenced his twenties that he was about that old, but I needed to know his exact age, so I did a little internet stalking. I felt like an idiot. But at least he was around my rough estimate. I don’t know what I would have done if Nate turned out to be fifty-five.
Then again, what difference does it make? He’s still Nate. And I still wanted him, no matter his age.
“I just didn’t sleep so well last night,” I say.
I stare straight ahead at the brick administrative building. Becca needs to grab a copy of her transcript so we walk up the steps.
It’s not totally a lie. I was up late thinking about Nate and wondering if I should text him and going over every single detail of our liaison. The last image I had before I fell asleep was his face, giving me a concerned smile as he left.
Strangely enough, once I closed my eyes, I fell into a deep and undisturbed slumber. I suppose sex tires a body out.
Becca gives me a quizzical look and hums to herself. She clearly doubts my excuse. Becca knows me too well. She’s seen me pull all-nighters to write papers and show up to class the next morning as focused as ever.
I hang back in the lobby as Be
cca strolls up to the secretary to fill out her request form.
I wonder if she can tell. Maybe there’s some sort of scent that sexually-active girls give off. Or maybe I look different or walk different, now that I’m not a virgin.
I certainly couldn’t detect anything different about Becca back when she lost her virginity freshman year, she had to tell me. But maybe it’s obvious. Maybe I’m carrying some leftover lustful energy.
I shake my head and adjust my backpack on my shoulders. I need to focus on my schoolwork. I’m done with classes for the day, so I resolve to go to the campus coffee shop with Becca after this. I’ll get an iced latte and focus on studying for an upcoming exam and give myself a break from obsessing over Nate.
Although I’m starting to think it might not be a switch I can turn on and off. I certainly tried to pay attention in my lecture, but every few seconds, I just kept wondering what Nate was up to. And if Nate was going to call me. Or if I should call him.
“Ok, got it!” Becca’s announcement startles me from my thoughts, and I jump.
Becca shakes her head as we exit the administrative building. “What is going on, I’m seriously worried?”
I chew on my bottom lip as we head towards the coffee shop. The hardest part is, I want to tell Becca. She’s my best friend, and we share everything. She knows why I don’t date, and my whole non-eventful sexual history. She’s always supported me, and I know she would be happy for me as long as I was happy.
But I’m also terrified to tell her. If I tell her, all of a sudden, this thing that belongs to just me and Nate won’t be ours anymore. It will be general knowledge. It will be open to the judgment of others.
I know Becca won’t spread the story around or anything, but I also know she’ll voice her opinion. And I’m terrified of what she’ll say.
I can’t even predict her reaction. She will be excited that the sex was a postive experience, first and foremost, but I also think she won’t understand the age gap. She will say that Nate was taking advantage of me. She will decide it was a wild first adventure, but now I should seek out guys my own age.
