A bottle of rum in my kitchen beckoned and I followed its call. A pirate stared back at me from the label of the empty bottle. Apparently my need for forgetfulness the previous evening had been stronger than I remembered. Well, at least getting more rum would give me something to do. Maybe I would go to a bar. I could meet someone, someone who would make me forget.
Buoyed by this thought, I grabbed my keys and went to the door. Pulling it open, I saw a small fist raised to just below my eye level. The owner of that fist had been about to knock.
She was small, not much over five feet tall, so I took her in from the top down. Her hair was blond, the blondest blond I had ever seen and it caught the light like polished metal. She wore dark-rimmed glasses that made her blue eyes seem to jump out. A grey coat obscured her top, but her short, loose-fitting skirt showed off some of the best legs I had ever seen. It was her.
“Hello, Carmen,” I said automatically.
Carmen lowered her hand and tilted her head to one side.
“I was just on my way out,” I explained.
“We need to talk,” Carmen said as she brushed past me.
I stood a moment longer before closing the door and turning around.
Carmen walked into the kitchen, which also served as the dining room, and took a seat at the table. My eyes lingered on her legs, now crossed so that the skirt rested well above her knee. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”
“Sure,” I said slowly as I walked to the table. “What would you like? Hi-C, pink lemonade, a glass of root beer with a scoop of ice cream?”
“You’re an asshole,” she said in a matter of fact tone.
I sat down across from her. “Well, you are a bit young for rum or beer.”
“Jack,” she sighed. “Why are you doing this? You know we’d be great together.”
She was right, I knew. I had never laughed with anyone the way I did with her and no one had ever listened to me the way she did. We had met at a drawing class at the community college. She was filling a requirement, I was killing time. “I’m old enough to be your father.”
“You’re thirty-one. My father’s forty-six.”
“Biologically,” I explained. “I was twelve the year you were born.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “What difference does it make?”
“Carmen, you’re awesome. But I was in a relationship with an older person for nine years and it was its own hell. I don’t want to put you through that. I don’t want to be a creepy daddy, I don’t want to be in charge.”
“Then don’t!” She shook her head. “We don’t have to be any of those things.” She rested her hand on mine. The touch thrilled in my skin. “Don’t worry, Jack,” she said earnestly. “I can boss you around just as well as an older woman could.”
“Thanks,” I said as I pulled my hand back.
Carmen looked away. “Is it that you don’t want me?”
“Carmen,” I said softly. She looked at me, hurt growing in her eyes. “You’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I would do things to you that you can’t even spell.”
That made her eyes pop open wide.
I got up and turned away, having trouble facing her. “It’s just that I don’t see how it could work. You’re about to go through so many important things. I don’t want to ruin it by being the ‘been there done that’ person.” I turned back to where she had been sitting, but she had gotten up and was now standing next to me, so close I had to look almost straight down to see her. Her coat slid to the floor, revealing dark red silk blouse that clung to her body in a way that made my pants feel a lot tighter.
“Jack,” Carmen said as she ran her hand over my chest. “Tell me what you’re feeling now. Don’t you want this?”
I definitely wanted that. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She looked up at me, her eyes calm. “You wouldn’t hurt me. How would you hurt me, Jack? Would you hit me?”
“No,” I said defensively. “I’ve never hit a woman.”
She continued to work her hand up and down my chest and stomach, mussing my shirt and making my whole body shiver while my cock throbbed.