A Lifetime in One Moment

And then just as slowly as she had taken me into her mouth, she let me back out. She gripped my penis and stroked it slowly as she took my scrotum into her mouth. She turned her head to the side and sucked my testicles deep inside her mouth, and then she placed her mouth over the very base of my erection, where it disappeared inside my body, a place I wasn't sure I had been aware of before that moment. She nuzzled it and pressed her face against me. Now I did feel the stirrings within, the little triggers that hint that an eruption was eminent. I wanted to warn her. I didn't want to come in her hair.

"Oh, I think...." I could hardly speak, "...come, unh."

"It's okay. Come in my mouth," she whispered up to me. She released my balls and took the head of my penis in her mouth. She sucked at it while she stroked me with one hand and massaged my quickly ascending testicles with the other. And then I came in her mouth. I teetered a bit, and she put her hands on my hips to steady me, all the while suckling me and swallowing my cum. No one had ever done that to me before, but she didn't seem to mind. In fact, I believe she enjoyed it.

She stood up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Oh my God," I exclaimed.

"Pretty good, huh?" she asked with a knowing, girlish smile.

"That was incredible."

"I am glad you enjoyed it."

"'Enjoy' is hardly a strong enough word."

"Why don't you go lie on the bed and relax while I brush my teeth?" She pointed to a second door in the bathroom. "Right in there."

It wasn't the master bedroom. It was a sparsely but handsomely decorated guest room. The bed had four posts topped with small carved pineapples. It looked inordinately heavy. There were cream-colored sheets and a faded blue cotton blanket. I stretched out on top of the covers. The pillows were large, overstuffed, and I had to punch them in a bit to keep my head from being swallowed. The windows were in alcoves, and the pale curtains cast a shadowy light. I closed my eyes. There was a ceiling fan above the bed and it was on its slowest setting, gently wafting the cool air. I felt drained and fully relaxed, and had I thought I could get away with it I might have dropped off to sleep.

When Laura came into the room she was in her robe again. She carried another bottle of wine, cold and white this time, and two fresh glasses. She set them on the nightstand and walked over to the dresser where there was a record player. She flipped through a stack of records.

"I suppose," she started, "that if we are going to enjoy an affair in one afternoon, we can afford two bottles of wine, don't you think?"

"Absolutely," I said as I sat up and filled the glasses. I was very thirsty, and the wine was icy cold and very dry; it tasted magnificent.

The record started. It sounded like Duke Ellington.

She stood beside the bed now, one hand on her hip, sipping her wine, looking at me.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"I am hoping you can stay the night," she said wistfully.

She had been tinkering with the idea of sending me home, so I thought this was a good development.

"I would like to. I am sure it can be arranged," I said, not adding that all I had to do was call my MOM and say I was staying at a friend's place. Sheesh.

She sat down on the bed cross-legged. Her robe was loose.

"You look very sexy in that robe," I offered.

"Thank you," she replied, adjusting the robe self-consciously to close it up a little.

"No, no: I liked it better open."

She casually flashed me a tit, laughed, and left the robe open. She seemed young enough to me in that moment.

She looked like she wanted to say something. I waited as she sipped her wine and gauged her words. "Do you remember the time you brought me flowers after Peter died."

"Yes."

"I have been thinking about you ever since that day."

"Thinking about what?"

"Just you. I could see you that day – see who you were, who you still are. You were standing there with those flowers in your hand, and I knew that you felt genuinely bad for me, that you wanted to do something to protect me, to make it better."

"I did feel that way."

"I know. I didn't see you as the pool boy, or the young man who lives up the street. I saw YOU." She pointed at my heart

"What did you see?"

"Where should I start? Okay – you are the kind of boy who would be overcome by the loss of a pet."

She was right. I had lost two dogs before we had gotten our present dog. It was very hard on me.

"Go on."

"You well up at sentimental movies. You always hold the car door open for your girlfriend. You love and respect your mother. You're disappointed with your father. School is so easy for you it bores you to death. Should I go on?"

I turned on my side and leaned on my elbow. "Sure."

She scooted closer to me so she could run her fingers through my hair. I felt momentarily awkward in my nakedness, and then it went away with the touch of her hand.

"And you like meaningful relationships with girls."

I laughed and she stopped petting my head.

"What?" she asked with a smile.

"Well, it was you who talked me out of the only non-meaningful relationship I have ever had with a girl."

"I did?"

"You don't remember?"

She looked like she was playfully thinking about it. "You mean when I suggested you find a girl to love."

"Yes. You remember all right."

"I was right, wasn't I?" she said slyly

"Yes, I suppose you were. What else?"

"Let's see. When you're in college, or maybe it's grad school – it is a little hazy, grad school I think – you are going to meet a girl and fall in love and spend the rest of your life with her."

"I will?"

"Yes."

"So you see all that?"

She leaned against the headboard and stretched her legs out beside me. "And when you think of me," she reached for my hair again, "when you remember this day, it will all seem like a dream."

I looked up into her eyes. She smiled.

I put my head on her thigh. She fluffed a pillow behind her and adjusted her back against the headboard. Then she continued to stroke my hair.

"So for one day we can pretend to be lovers. I can feel young again; you can feel like a man. We can fall in love and get married and have children and grow old together – all in one day. A lifetime in one moment."

"I like that thought," I murmured. I untied the belt of her robe and slipped my hand inside and petted her thigh. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

"So do I," she sighed.

I tried to imagine what she was thinking at that moment. With my head in her lap and my ear against her thigh, I felt like I was an Indian guide with my ear to the ground; I was trying to hear her thoughts through her skin, as if they were echoing inside her body. What I heard was the thud and echo of a weighty loneliness.

She had obviously given this day, our moment together, some thought. I was a visitor in her imagination. I could see her plan. She had wanted to feed me and bathe me and then relieve me of my initial sexual tension before sharing her bed with me. And then she had wanted me to understand the ephemeral nature of our relationship. We were free to give ourselves completely to the moment, we were free to love one another for the moment, but it would be a singular moment. I understood all that

What I didn't understand was the desolation I sensed in her. Her robe was fully parted now. I was running my hand down from her shoulder over her breasts, her tummy, her hips, her thighs. She was exposed and vulnerable. And then I understood. She had made herself vulnerable to me. It was like she was handing me a precious, delicate gift, and she was waiting to see whether I was clumsy and stupid and would drop and break it, or whether I was man enough to handle it carefully and treat it with respect. She had placed herself at great emotional risk in the hope that I was worthy, that I could make her loneliness and sadness go away, that I could quell her desolation by sharing myself completely with her, if only for a time.

I sat up. Her hand fell from my head. She opened her eyes and looked into mine.

"I understand," I said.

"Then I can say it;" she whispered, "what I feel for you right now, Kevin, is love."

"I love you, too," I replied, and we kissed to seal our pact. Laura then smiled and pulled me to her. I leaned into her and put my head against her chest. She held me tightly. The echoes of loneliness and sadness had quieted, I thought.

Laura slipped off her robe and we lay on the bed our sides facing each other, our limbs entangled, our mouths pressed together. We kissed like reunited lovers after a long and arduous separation. We kissed passionately and purposefully. We kissed like we were searching for a connection, and slowly but certainly I felt that connection ignite and burn between us.

We fondled and explored each other's genitals. We were progressing, I knew, towards the act, and I felt like I had to say something.

"I am a virgin," I whispered in her ear.

She stopped moving as if she hadn't expected that. "Oh," she uttered. I waited "We don't have to do this, you know," she whispered finally.

"Oh, I think we definitely need to do this. I just wanted you to know that."

There was a pause and then she pushed away from me slightly. She looked at me like she was trying to gauge my feelings. "Thank you, then. That makes me feel special."

"You are," I said.

"Then I'll let you in on a secret," she said with a broad smile.

"What?"

"You are only the second man I have ever..." she paused to gauge her words, "... been like this with." She didn't seem satisfied with her choice.

"Ever loved?"

"Yes, Kevin. You are the only other man I have ever loved."

We returned to kissing. We petted and fondled each other's genitals. I suckled her breasts and she gently pushed me on my back and straddled me. For some unknown reason, I felt compelled to say something.

"Of course, when I said I was a 'virgin,' I meant it in only the strictest, most technical sense."

"Of course." Laura laughed and smothered my face with kisses. She reached between us and positioned me for entry. The tip of my manhood quivered against her warm, moist flesh. Every muscle in my body tightened. Carefully, she descended on me, and as she did so she whispered in my ear.

"You're not a virgin in any sense anymore," she said breathily as she came to rest on my pelvis with me deep inside her.

I sighed in utter relief. It was more wonderful than I had imagined. She rocked above me and she stared into my eyes, but I had to close my eyes in the throws of my pleasure. She kissed me on the forehead and cheek. All I could do was grip her hips and indulge the sensation.

She fell on to my chest and said, "Hold me tightly." I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed. She held her cheek to mine. I took over the movement below by arching my hips.

"That feels good," she said.

"Yes it does," I replied with exasperated sincerity.

I held Laura in my arms and I moved in and out of her and I wanted that moment to last for a long time. I didn't want to come. I didn't want to change positions. I didn't want let her go. I wanted to squeeze her until she became a part of me, or I became a part of her.

We made love slowly. Time passed. The sun was setting and the light in the room was fading from amber to lavender to deep purple. The record had ended long ago, and the only sounds were our breath and the occasionally creak of the bed.

She rolled off of me. She pulled me on top of her. She spread her legs wide and pulled up her knees. Completely exposed and as vulnerable as she could be, I thought – her gift to me.

I began to enter her and she pulled me down into her. "You are a beautiful, loving creature," she said looking in my eyes, "and a good and decent man." I felt her earnestness. "I love the way it feels to be in love with you," she said emphasizing "love" each time.

If it had been her intent to make me feel good about myself, she had succeeded. I felt lucky and proud and very much like a man. And then I realized that she was coaxing me with her arms and hips, with her whole body, wanting me to be the aggressor.

"Make love to me, Kevin," she pleaded more than commanded. "Make love to me just as strongly as you can. Don't worry about me. Don't worry about coming. Just make love to me with all your heart."

And I did. I plunged and bucked into her. Each time I thought I was being too rough she would encourage me with cries of pleasure – "That's it," and, "Oh god."

I looked down at her, and for a moment I had an out-of-body experience. I could imagine it, I thought. I could see me making love to Laura thousands of times over, making love to the eighteen-year-old Laura I saw in the picture, to a thirty-year-old Laura, to the Laura in bed with me tonight, to an older and even more elegant Laura – to all of them, to all of her, all at the same time.

"I'm going to come," I announced. Thousands of times over, I whispered to myself.

"So am I," she moaned. "Come inside me, Kevin. Come deep inside me."

And it was if she had willed herself to a shuddering orgasm. The delight I felt in her pleasure was too much for me to bear and I pushed as far into her as I could and let loose with my own orgasm.

And then we laughed and hugged and kissed.

Later, I was lying on my back with my head on the pillow, and Laura was cuddled against me with her head on my chest. She was mindlessly fingering what little there was of the hair on my chest. I sighed deeply. I was experiencing an unfamiliar, whole-body sensation of euphoria. Laura had lit some candles and put on a record when she was up earlier, and the flickering light and the strumming of James Taylor's guitar had me in a trance. I knew the album well. It would end with "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight." I wondered if it was intentional. I decided not to ask.

Laura sat up and took her wine glass from the nightstand and sipped from it. She was wearing her robe again. I was still naked.

"The realtor is going to put the for sale sign out in front of the house tomorrow," Laura said matter-of-factly.

"This house?"

She smiled at me. "Of course this house."

"So are you going back to school?"

"Yes. Definitely."

"San Diego? Like you had planned?"

"Yes."

"Good for you." I put my arms behind my head. I was thinking. "You know it is a short drive from L.A. to San Diego."

"Kevin, that's not going to happen."

"It's not?"

"No."

"Absolutely 'not!' or it would just be less complicated if it didn't happen."

"Absolutely NOT." She leaned down and kissed my forehead. "There will never be an opportunity for anyone to confuse me as your mother."

Yikes. That was a scary thought.

"When do you leave for USC?" she asked.

"Next Saturday."

"Well, Kevin, I am afraid we won't ever see each other after that."

My mind started to race. My euphoria was waning. I wanted to figure out how I could spend every moment between now and next Saturday with her. I wanted to start making love to her again right away, and not stop for a week.

"That was cold." I offered my opinion.

"Yes it was." She set down her wine and stretched out next to me and kissed me on the cheek. "Please don't do this. Don't make me sorry we did this. You said you understood."

Yes, I had, and I did. "You're right. I'm sorry." My euphoria was totally displaced. I ached inside now.

"It's okay." She rubbed my chest. "Remember this, Kevin. Sex always complicates everything. What we are doing? It is dangerous. You can't have sex, not sex like THAT, without sharing a part of your soul. Maybe I should have known better."

"No. I understand. That doesn't mean I won't miss you."

"I will miss you too, Kevin – very much."

I stared at the ceiling and played over in my head what she had said – sex like THAT!

"So," I started, hoping to change the subject and the mood, "it was pretty good then?"

"What?"

"The sex?"

She laughed out loud and then her hand started to wander from my chest down over my abdomen. "It was great." Her hand found its mark. She began to stroke me, and I swelled with desire. "Didn't you think so?"

"Oh yeah, but then I don't have much experience in these matters, as you know."

"Well, let's see what we can do about that."

We made love again, and then yet again, much later that night. In between Laura cooked a dinner of pasta with mussels and white wine and butter. We watched an old movie and shared another bottle of wine. It was a romantic comedy with Cary Grant, and Laura watched it with her head in my lap part of the time, and when she'd laugh I could swear there was no age difference between us. She seemed as young as me. She could have been my summertime girlfriend. I wanted to take her to the amusement park and share a caramel apple with her. I wanted to take her to the movies and eat buttered popcorn. I wanted to stroll with her, hand-in-hand, through the park. It didn't seem so impossible right then, though I suppose I knew it was.

What I learned that evening is that we don't get "older." Oh sure, we get smarter and wiser, and we can also get run down a bit from life's disappointments. But deep down inside we don't "age." We are not young or old. What Laura saw in me, the beauty I saw in her, that essential quality of being – it never changes, or at least it doesn't change because of time. Laura and I found a place together, inside of each other, and we stood there for a time; we held hands and watched the sun set and rise; we were brave enough to share our most intimate of possessions – ourselves – even if only for a moment.

When I woke up the next morning it was already bright and Laura was already up. I found a big towel and wrapped it around my waist and ventured downstairs.

She was reading the paper on the patio in her robe. She offered me some coffee. I hadn't yet acquired the taste, but I agreed.

"I was hoping you would still be in bed when I woke up," I said slyly but truthfully.

"You're incorrigible," she said setting a steaming mug in front of me.

We talked about our plans for the day. I had to be home in a couple hours to go to church with my mom. I could tell I shouldn't have told Laura that because it changed her mood and hindered my efforts to get her back into bed. I tried a different tactic.

"Well then come swimming with me," I pleaded. I saw her hesitate, so I stood up and removed my towel. She laughed. "C'mon," I coaxed her, holding out my hand.

"You expect me to go swimming naked with you right now?" she asked rhetorically, and I could see she was staring at my semi-erect penis.

"Don't tell me you don't skinny-dip in your own pool."

She shook her head. "Not since..."

She looked up into my eyes. I knew what she had started to say – not since her husband had passed away.

"...Not for quite some time," she finally finished, and it was like she had waived a dark cloud away.

"I dare you, then."

That made her laugh. She stood up and let her robe drop into her chair, and then she hurried away from me playfully. I jumped in the water after her, and then I sought her out and wrapped her in my arms. We kissed.

"I was going to send you straight home this morning," she said pulling her lips from mine.

"That was your plan, huh?"

"Yes, you naughty little boy," she whispered in my ear.

The blood rushed to my genitals.

We kissed with hot, wet mouths. She strapped her legs around me. I pulled at the flesh of her behind. My now fully aroused member was pressed flat against my abdomen and I could feel it nuzzle into the folds of her labia. It was too soon, I thought.

I carried her to the edge of the pool and I lifted her up and set her bottom on the pool ledge.

"I want to taste you," I said to her, and as I descended on her flesh she brought her feet up on to the ledge and leaned back on her outstretched arms, readily offering herself to me.