As Timeless as the Sea

"If by intimate," Abbey says, "I assume you're asking if we're having sex."

"A correct assumption."

Abbey and I look at each other, nod and grin. Then Abbey turns to Alice. "Yeah, you can say that."

"Ohmygod..."

"Honey, this isn't a bad thing. I know how you must feel. But everything I said about Dennis is true. If not for him, I'd still be crying half the day. Just minutes ago, you encouraged me to find someone who can make me happy. Well, I have."

Alice sighs and slaps a hand across her thigh. "But I meant one of those men who've been calling you. They can't all be vultures."

We sit in silence for a few moments. Meanwhile, Edward comes back in and sits next to Alice. "Sorry, I needed some fresh air to process."

"You walked out there without shoes," Abbey says.

"A petty detail next to what I'm hearing," Edward says.

Alice smirks. "You missed the X-rated part."

"Spare me. Mom, did you really have to tell us this?"

"Yes, because I didn't want to lie to you kids. Or sneak around either. Dennis and I want to see each other over the summer. So sneaking around, like we've been doing, is no longer an option."

"And I'm tired of lying to my parents," I say, "telling them I'm somewhere else with someone else."

"Terrific," Alice deadpans. "Always the good boy, eh?"

Abbey looks at Edward. "Listen, son, not to get X-RATED, as your sister put it, but we've been intimate. But don't worry, we won't be carrying on here with you guys living at home."

"At least when you're here," I say, trying to add some levity. I'm ignored.

Abbey breaks a moment of silence. "Listen, I don't expect you to be happy with this. All I ask is that you try to understand. Understand how depressed I was for months after your father died and how Dennis has lifted me out of my doldrums. Yes, I'm old enough to be HIS mom. But he's been such a comfort to me, you just don't know." She tries to blink back tears, but then they begin to flow. "Sorry," she says, wiping her eyes. "My emotions are still so raw."

Alice draws her mouth into a tight-lipped look of sympathy. Then she gets up, stoops down and hugs her mom. "It's okay, mom. Dad's sudden death threw us all out of whack. Do what you've gotta do. And Dennis, if you make her that happy, then we can't complain. Anyway, who are we to judge? Edward and I are less than comfortable with the relationship, but we'll adjust. We're here for you, mom, and we love you." She looks at Edward who nods in agreement.

*****

Less than an hour after leaving Abby's house, my mom, dad and I are in the den after I told them that "I've got something important that you guys should know." We keep our voices down in deference to Linda, my fourteen-year-old sister who's upstairs in her room with her girlfriend Stacy. The last thing we want is for them to overhear the discussion.

"I had a feeling that you might have been up to something," dad says. "All those overnights at friends' houses, imposing on more friends than you have. It didn't add up and now I know why."

My forty-something parents hear this news with relative calm. "We don't appreciate you lying to us," mom says, "but I understand why you did. As for Abbey Lane, well, she's something else. I've always known her to be so straitlaced, so conventional. I mean, jumping into bed with a neighbor's kid. Guess I didn't know her as well as I thought. What do Edward and Alice think of all this? They can't be okay with it."

I tell them what transpired and also when it began, the day I helped her move furniture. Then I say, "Her kids understand, as you two should, that it's more than just a casual affair, more than just jumping into bed. We...well, we...love each other."

My parents look at each other, their faces heavy with incredulity. Then dad asks, "So, you think of her as your girlfriend? Like Ilene was?"

"Hardly like Ilene, dad. I'm helping Abbey through her grief."

"Huh huh, I see. And what's she doing for you? As if I didn't know."

Mom chortles.

"I'll say this," dad continues, "Abbey Lane is one attractive woman. If I was single..." He glances over at mom. "Well, I better shut up."

Mom adjusts her glasses and shoots him a scolding look. "Yes, Morris, it's best you do shut up." She's always been sensitive about her weight problem. Dad should have known better than to voice his desire for the slim, sexy Abbey in front of her.

"Well, she is a looker, Karen. Just saying."

"Great...I'm glad you find her so hot. Apparently, so does our son. You'd think that a woman who looks like Abbey wouldn't lack for male companionship her age, wouldn't you? I never pictured her as the cougar type."

"Men have asked her out," I reveal. "She's not interested in them, at least at the moment."

"I see," mom says. "Look, Denny, I hope you don't mind, but me and Abbey need to talk."

"Oh, man, not cool. Are you going to give her hell or something?"

Mom shakes her head. "I want to know where she's coming from. Why she picked you, a neighbor that's a couple decades her junior to help her through her grief. You said that what you're doing isn't illegal. You're right, it isn't. But it is inappropriate. Doesn't Abbey see that? I'm not angry, just perplexed."

"Does this mean that you forbid me to see her?"

My parents, seated on our worn den sofa, look at each other, waiting for the other to answer. Finally, dad says, "I get the feeling that you'd see her anyway, at one of your motel hideaways. Right?"

I shrug, "Yeah, I guess. She means that much to me."

"Just don't make this house one of those hideaways," mom warns.

*****

Abbey

Karen Merrick gives me a call. Not surprised, Dennis had shot me a heads-up text that she would.

Karen's not angry, she says, just "perplexed." She asks, "Why in the world would you pick my son, of all people, to help ameliorate your grief?"

"Honestly, I didn't exactly pick him," I say. "Things just happened. How to explain these things. I can't. I do know that If not for Dennis, emotionally, I'd be a lot worse off."

I hear her sigh. Then she says, "I still don't quite get it, Abbey. Not to get too personal, but do you have a thing for younger guys?"

"I have a THING, as you put it, for Dennis who happens to be younger."

"You love him?"

"I do."

Another sigh. "So how long do you think this will go on? I mean, you're not thinking of marriage, are you?"

"Yes. Know any good caterers?"

"What?! Have you lost your marbles?! You've got to be kidding me!"

"Duh. Yes, Karen, I am kidding. No marriage. We won't even be going steady. But I do love your son. No kidding there. I love him for what he's done for me, for his kindness and sensitivity. And yes, because I know what else you're thinking, for the way he makes love to me. He's quite the young man. Quite a lover, too, but I'll spare you the sticky details. He's been my light into the darkness after losing Sanford. Listen, I empathize with your concerns. If my son were in a similar situation, I'd be concerned also."

"It is what it is. Is that what you're saying?"

"It is what I've told you it is. Look, I don't expect you to give me your blessing. Far from it. And if you forbid us from seeing one another, I'll just have to live with that. I'll honor your wishes."

After about a fifteen-second pause, Karen says, "No, Abbey, Morris and I aren't going to forbid him from seeing you. But only because he appears happy and in love with you as well. We don't like it, but I guess we can live with it, so long as he's discreet. I don't want our neighbors knowing. Being gossiped about isn't my thing."

"Karen, on that we can both agree."

*****

When I told Karen Merrick that Dennis and I won't be going steady, I was trying to be funny. I mean, a forty-something woman going steady with a college kid? Funny, right? Well, I thought so. Karen didn't laugh. No sense of humor, that woman. But seriously, it's like we are going steady. We see each other every weekend. Per my kids' wishes, we confine our hanky-panky to hotel rooms. Because he's now working, Dennis foots some of the expense.

The calls from my would-be suitors stop. "I'm involved with someone," I tell them. One of these guys asks, "who's the lucky guy?" I decline to answer.

Keeping our liaison from the neighbors hasn't worked. Somehow, Linda, Dennis' teen sister, finds out and word spreads, first to Linda's girlfriends and then beyond through word of mouth and social media. A forty-something woman going steady with a college kid--not so funny to me either anymore. Dennis tells me that Morris, his dad, wants to know how good I am in bed. Morris approached him for a jocular, man-to-man, the way many men--and some women also--engage in sex talk. Dennis waved him off, told him he wasn't "comfortable discussing that stuff" with his parents.

Truth to tell, I do discuss that "stuff" with my best friend Ginny Larson, a woman I've been close to for years. At first, she was taken aback. "Out of character for you, Abbey," she said. However, true friend that she is, she doesn't pass judgement. In fact, she thinks it's "cute."

June spills into July, the hottest month of the summer. Beach time. Dennis and I take off work for a couple days for a long weekend in Ocean City. We had talked about it for weeks. Now, we're finally here, staying at a nice beachfront hotel. Lucky us, the hotel had received a cancellation that allowed me to make reservations when vacancies at places like this in July are rare.

On the beach and boardwalk, I see teen girls, reminders of the girl I once was. Being with Dennis makes me feel younger, not older. "Those young beach babes have nothing in hotness on you," he tells me. Not just talk--he shows me, from the sensuous way he rubs sunscreen over me to the loving way he performs in bed. Dennis jokes that being here with me leaves him with a "perpetual hard-on." It's not much of an exaggeration. When we make out at the beach, I can feel "The Bulge," as I call it. My mom once told me to be careful because "boys are horny all the time." What she didn't say, and what I've learned, is that horny boys can also make middle-age gals like me horny all the time also: the perpetual boner meets the perpetual hot, wet pussy. Coming--and I do mean coming--to a video near you.

We shower together and then make love. Sometimes we make love, then shower. The sequence takes a backseat to the act, and the act gives me a sense of renewal and hope for the future. As incredibly delicious as my experience with Dennis is, emotionally and otherwise, I keep things in perspective. Karen had asked me how long this will last. Ginny asks me the same thing. Honestly, I don't know. I'm hardly in a hurry for it to end. But someday it will for all the reasons that romances such as ours rarely survive beyond a certain point.

We talk about this the last night we're here, strolling barefoot along the shoreline a few hours after sunset. Dennis is wearing tan shorts and a red sweatshirt and I'm wearing a turquoise pleated skirt and a sleeveless white blouse. No bra or panties either. He knows I'm braless. My bare pussy, no, but I'm pretty sure he soon will.

Holding my hand, he says, "I never want this to end, Abbey. I can't imagine never seeing you again."

Nodding, I say, "Me neither. But baby, someday it will. I'd be awfully selfish clinging onto you, keeping you from meeting someone your own age, someone you could make a life with, have kids with. All that stuff."

He catches me brushing away a tear. We stop. Then he looks me in the eye. "I love you, Abbey. I always will. Maybe that sounds maudlin or even corny. But that's the way I feel."

I brush away another tear. His eyes are moist, too, I notice. "There's nothing maudlin or corny about it," I say. "It's sincere and heartfelt. And you know how much I love you also. We stand here upset about a future breakup that we both know is inevitable. Except it's not yet here. So let's just enjoy what we have while we have it and let the future be what it will be."

We start to kiss. My love and desire for Denny is something I can't adequately put into words. So warm are his lips, so tender is the way he holds and kisses me, like something out of an old romance movie. More than just watching, I'm playing a starring role. And Denny Merrick is my leading man.

When his hand goes up my skirt, he says, "Oh, I sure do enjoy this. You didn't tell me."

I hold him at arm's length and grin. "Damn right, I didn't. That's what surprises are all about."

We get back into it--so hot and passionate that I barely hear the seagulls and the ocean's roar. Good thing that we're at least a mile or two north of where the boardwalk ends. No one's around and therefore I don't stop him from stooping down and licking my wet pussy. That tongue of his--wow! My knees buckle, the inky-black sky appears to spin. If his arms weren't braced around my legs, I'd collapse on the sand. He stands, drops his zipper, then lifts me up to where my legs wrap tightly around his waist and his amazing cock slips inside me. Not the most comfortable position to make love. But you can't beat the exciting spontaneity of it.

Moments later, we get more naughty. We grab a lounger from around the pool. Then he gets on his back and I straddle him, my pleated skirt bunched around my waist. We perspire in the warm, humid air, humping in the semi-darkness, so thrilled to be here and so into each other. We're way past the point and purpose of how this came about--Dennis helping me cope with the loss of my husband. I lost a husband, then gained a love I never thought possible. Diehard romantics might say it was all meant to be, as if it was predetermined. Maybe they're right, I don't know. Things happen and the budding philosophers among us grope for reasons why. Right now, there's plenty of groping going on but it has little to do with philosophy.

What I do know is that this ocean will be here long after we break up, long after we leave this earth. But right now, right at this intoxicating moment, I feel our love is timeless, as timeless as the sea lapping the shore.