Monday, September 15, 2014
“Truth or dare,” Emily asked with a mouth full of onion ring.
I considered my choices carefully. The last dare had not gone as expected. She had dared me to flirt with the Sonic girl that brought our food out. My plan had been to give a generous tip as a catalyst to some flirtatious banter. So I handed thirty dollars to the young girl as a tip for our fifteen dollar meal. Instead the girl broke down in tears and literally reached through the van window to hug me. It turned out she was a single, teenage mother living with her parents and trying to work while caring for her daughter and attending high school. The amount of my tip was the amount she was short for her daughter’s monthly preschool tuition, which was due in the morning. The entire exchange left both Emily and me speechless.
“Truth,” I answered.
Emily thought a moment. “If you could marry anyone, who would it be?” It took a moment for my brain to decipher her words. While her cerebral palsy was not severe, Emily did have a speech impediment that made her difficult to understand if you were not focused.
“Anyone? Does it have to be a real person or can it be a fictional character?”
“Anyone I guess.”
“Velma from Scooby Doo. The original series, not the new ones.”
“Really? Velma?” Emily rolled her eyes. “I figured you’d go for Daphne.”
“I like smart girls. Besides, I think Velma is a lot hotter.”
This made Emily choke on her peanut butter milkshake.
“Your turn,” I announced. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” she answered quickly.
My last dare had been to get out of the van, strike a silly pose, and take a selfie. Unfortunately for her, Sonic was packed, and she had had a big audience.
“Describe your Prince Charming.”
The teenage splotches of acne on her cheeks reddened more, and she gave an embarrassed look. At eighteen she alternated between acting an adult and a teenage girl. She and her parents had been my neighbor for over a decade, though the two of us had developed a friendship over the last two. Emily was smart and fun to be with, once she warmed up to you. We shared common interests in books and sometimes movies as well as a love of the outdoors.
“Well… He would have to be smart. And handsome. I guess I don’t care about how much money he has as long as he lives within his means. And I guess he has to be fun to be with. Oh yeah. And romantic.”
“That’s pretty vague,” I observed.
We sat in silence for a while as we finished our meals. Typically I saw Emily on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we carpooled to campus. After my divorce three years earlier I decided to pursue some of my goals in life; the first was to work on my PhD in Computer Science. My sole class this semester was on Tuesdays and Thursdays at eleven. Emily had classes from eight until eleven. So she rode with me in the mornings. While she was in class I studied or worked on actual work for my employer until class. At 12:30, when my class was over, I took Emily home before going into the office.
However, she had surprised me with a text message tonight letting me know her parents were working late and that she was dying for onion rings and a peanut butter milkshake. It was her not so subtle way of asking if I would drive her to Sonic or bring her food. Being the sucker I am, I put the grilled chicken I had just cooked in the refrigerator and met her outside.
“Do you want anything else,” I asked as she placed the container that had held a foot long chili dog and an order of onion rings in the bag. For someone so small, she could eat a lot. Emily was barely five feet tall and probably weighed a hundred pounds. I was twice her weight and had not been able to finish my cheeseburger and tots.
“I’m full,” she replied. Pulling her iPhone out, she read the latest text message. “Mom and dad are home.” Emily also hated being home alone.
The drive home took about five minutes. It was just after seven and already dark outside. While she lived next door, I walked her across the yard to her porch.
Emily stopped on the first step. “Truth or dare?”
I blinked in surprise. “Dare,” I replied without really thinking.
Her face grew crimson. “I dare you to kiss me.”
My breath caught. “Kiss you?”
She only nodded.
“You’re serious?”
A hurt look came across her face. “I was just joking.” Her voice sounded hurt.
Without thinking I stepped forward and caught her hand in mine. The cloth of her wrist brace felt rough compared to the soft skin of her slender fingers. She stopped her ascent and turned to face me. Her blue eyes peered nervously through her black rimmed glasses as they met mine. I took her other hand and turned her body to face me. As I leaned forward her eyes went wide and then squeezed shut.
Lightly I pressed my lips to hers. Emily was not breathing, and her body trembled as we stood there. Then I stepped back.
A grin split her face. Her fingers clutched my hands momentarily before freeing them. “Good night,” she said and went inside before I replied.
Sleep did not come easily that night as my thoughts were filled with Emily. At forty-three I was older than her parents and had a daughter older than she. Lindsey was a junior in college majoring in astrophysics. Already her professors were discussing graduate school with promises of assistantships.
Had I inadvertently sent Emily messages saying I was interested in her romantically? I thought back over the last two years and especially to the last few weeks. Nothing stood out. During her junior and senior years of high school I had helped her with math and science homework at the request of her parents. During the spring semester of her senior year she had done volunteer work with the hiking club I was in. Finally, starting in August, we had carpooled together.
Until a few weeks ago I had been in a relationship with a coworker. Linda worked in accounting, and we had started dating seven months earlier. In late August she moved to California to be closer to her children, and I had been truly sad to see her go. While she was much older than I at sixty-one, Linda had acted half her age. The two of us had gone on numerous backpacking trips including a three week trip along the Appalachian Trail. And then there had been the sex! Linda had been insatiable; I think I had had more sex in those seven months that the last seven years of my marriage.
So then, why had Emily asked me to kiss her? How did I feel about her? She definitely did not fit in the mold of women I dated. I preferred women older than me; I had never had a relationship with a younger woman in my life. Also I liked women with curves to them; Emily was not just slender, she was rail thin. Nor did she have a bosom. It was not that she was small chested. As far as I could tell, she was flat chested.
Yet we did enjoy being together. Despite the age difference, we had an endless supply of things to talk about. Books. Movies. The outdoors. School.
That night my dreams were haunted by Emily. In some she lay beneath me, pale and naked with her raven hair spilled about her head, as we made love. In others she laughed at my advances when I professed my desire for her. And sometimes I rebuked her advances and left her in tears.
My sleep that night was troubled, but it would only be the first of many nights to come.
Submitted September 30, 2014 at 09:31AM by michemil http://ift.tt/1xvFWI1 Diary
No comments:
Post a Comment