Scruples

I was ending another week of hard, productive work, feeling that somewhat familiar, somewhat welcomed mix of exhaustion and exhilaration, looking forward to an evening alone and a long night's sleep before a weekend of nothing in particular - some exercise, certainly, maybe take the boat out for an afternoon of fishing on the lake, maybe see if the rare event of something worth watching were on either TV or the local theaters. Traffic had been the usual Friday afternoon parking lot along the Interstate, but I'd managed to get through it by determinedly chilling and reminding myself that I kept that 9mm in the car for defense, not road rage vigilantism. Finally, the idiots survived without incident, I pulled off at my exit, wended through town, stopped at the market for a drinkable red and a steak larger than I knew I'd eat in one sitting, and arrived at my house, the end one on a cul-de-sac, right on the lake, with the dock out back and the screened in porch overlooking the backyard and calm water.

I was widowed some years ago, and had adjusted quite well I thought, considering losing a spouse has to be a tough thing for just about anyone. I had made it through the somewhat grueling 40s, gotten the kids well delivered to the adult world, and made it half way through my 50s without any significant health or financial issues, being fortunate in both, and having moved up a bit in the big corporation I worked for as well. Suburban life was good, and I had a metropolis within a half hour when I wanted. That included female companionship when I felt like it, but I'd come to be pretty stoic about that. Many single females in my age category saw me as security material, which became obvious on about the second or third date. I didn't need security, and I was damned well not going to be lured into being just security for someone - that was a decision I was determined to drive if it ever happened, not be driven to. Meanwhile, younger women liked younger guys, and older women were mostly, well, set in their ways.

I am fortunate, or cursed (if that's your perspective), with finding women endlessly fascinating and endlessly attractive in ways far beyond the magazine presentation ideals. Since my second bachelorhood, I've dated and not bedded, and dated and bedded, women from 35 to 75, finding all those bedmates arousing, and mostly aroused by the experience. My days of being a stud are past, if they were at all, but I'm still functioning on all cylinders sexually. It's just that it's a social hassle, and so, I haven't had a serious partner since my wife died, while I haven't had to go without sex for more than a month, maybe two, and that mostly due to distractions at either my business at work/life, or my lack of motivation.

All that said, I wasn't expecting social company that weekend, just some time to veg.

I'd put on shorts and sandals after a post-workout shower and was reading up on the week's accumulation of magazines with a cold beer side and oldies on the radio out on the back patio, when I realized through my focus on other things that the doorbell was - had been? - ringing, faintly. I get few visitors, and the neighborhood rarely gets solicitors, so I hustled into the house, grabbed a shirt from a pile of clean clothes I hadn't gotten around to putting away, and made it through the kitchen to the +

door, buttoning as I went and getting about 2/3 of them done as I opened the door. Yes, I have a peep hole, and no, I didn't use it. Walking down the steps away from the house toward a nondescript car parked and apparently empty at my front sidewalk, I saw a woman and called out to her, "Excuse me, were you looking for someone?" thinking she had the wrong place.

She turned and I could see she was young - early 20s, I guessed, petite, shoulder-length blond hair, trim, dressed in an off-white linen shirtwaist dress (or that's what we used to call them) that was flattering without being provocative in the least, and loafers. A bit of a throwback, I thought, since I rarely see young women in loafers these days. The outfit altogether could have been worn without adjustment 30+ years ago.

Seeing me, she stopped a moment as if to take my measure, and seeming to take a breath, came back toward me. "Mr. Arthur?" she asked.

"Hello, yes, that's right. Can I help you?" I was wary - how come she knew my name? A rare solicitor after all? Someone I should recognize from her youth that I was blanking on? There was a distinct familiarity, but nothing I could put a name to. Think, Bill, think! Nope, nada. OK, go with the flow.

"I'm Lissa Wright, but you might remember my mother, Fran Anderson - you two dated back in your college days?"

Fran! The memories flooded back. Fran was smaller than her daughter, really petite, a great figure, actually my age but way ahead in terms of "social experience" at the time. She looked so young that when I approached her at a college town welcome back students picnic, my friends thought I was after a high school girl (hence their not having beat me to her - I was hardly the lothario in those days). It turned out she was a rising sophomore at the state university but had grown up in the town where the small college I attended was. The university started later, hence her still being home, and thus at the picnic, her family nearby. I asked her to dance, she accepted, and we chatted while the band played what we called beach music, thankfully not so loudly that we couldn't carry on a conversation. By the end of the picnic, I'd met her younger brother, her parents (including an apparently humorless dad with the "I'll kill you if you touch her" look down pat, her mom gracious and attractive, keeping dad's protectiveness from actualization), and we had a date for the following Saturday. I was carless at the time, but she had a clunker and offered to drive - I was counting blessings!

Come that day, she arrived as planned at about 10 a.m., with a lunch packed for both of us. The college had a lake nearby and gave sailing lessons free, with a minimal day sailer sailboat rental to students. My definite pretensions to the life of Gatsby ingrained, I'd taken the sailing lessons, envisioning myself at Newport someday. As I'd suggested to her earlier, we headed out to the lake, and I spent the next several hours doing my best to keep us (1) upright, and (2) not heading in the wrong direction. I hoped I hadn't shown myself to be a total landlubber, but found that she wouldn't have known the difference. While the life jacket I insisted she wear did nothing for the outfit (shorts and blouse) she wore, I also hoped she appreciated my concern for her safety (and mine, as I dutifully wore mine as well).

We lunched when back ashore, eating at a table by the docks after I'd put away the sailboat, a massive 18-footer maybe - long time ago, so don't hold me to that. I do remember we were the only ones out there, and that we were both pretty worn out. I wasn't comfortable at sailing by any means, and she'd been game, wanting to try everything and my leading her through the steps. After eating, we lay on the grassy slope, watched the clouds, and generally had a wonderful time of it. As we packed up, I was out of ideas and money to have any. I figured she was probably sensing that when she said she'd heard about a party that night we could go to. We gathered our things, and the picnic basket in the trunk, I held the door for her at the car, and she took the initiative, stepping close to me and kissing me. It was gentle and wonderful, and I remember it distinctly, and have from time to time over the years. I returned the kiss, and we stood, bodies pressed together, at the car, as I pulled her to me, felt her bra-restrained breasts against me and hoped that she would both feel and not be offended by my growing erection. She was beautiful, we were adults in the legal sense, and I was totally smitten.

I don't know how long we "made out," but we ended up sprawled across the front seat, that erection undeniable as we continued, with her gently but firmly moving my hand when it came to grope at her breast or her ass. I sort of expected that, but it was part of the game that I'd need to try, and that she'd rebuff on a first date, but not so vehemently that it wasn't an implicit promise for more in the future, or so I thought. We finally came up for air, and I immediately asked her when I could see her again. She hemmed a bit, then said she'd write me and we'd see (no address was needed at our small college beyond the college's and town's names, and yes, it was back when people actually wrote letters to each other), but that she really did need to get home.

Meanwhile, it was a bit too early to go to the party, but she said maybe we could help set-up, and off we went to an apartment complex off campus. There were three guys who lived there, and they seemed happy to have the help, so we pitched in and go the keg tapped, ice set out, and even made a grocery run since the guys were pretty unprepared for snacks. When we got back to the apartment, the guys had tequila shooters going, and she joined right in - sort of a surprise to me, but ok. After several of those, she was feeling no pain (I don't like tequila, so was sticking to nursing a beer), and one of the guys brought her a fruit drink of some sort from the kitchen. We were just sort of hanging out, when she really got loopy, and the lead party guy started laughing that she'd gone so easily, now was time for some fun. It didn't take long to figure out that he was intending a gang-bang without her consent, and while she was still conscious, she was really in no mental condition to assent or physical condition to resist, and I had to pretty much take on the odds and threaten the guys in order to get her out of there intact. I took her keys and thought we could just drive around or go someplace until whatever she'd been given wore off. I was figuring quaalude, but I'm no druggy, so that was a guess. I figured if she didn't come back down in an hour or so or showed other, worse, symptoms, I'd take her to the emergency room.

I headed us out into the countryside to just kill time, and she got all blubbery about my saving her. She said she felt sick, and I pulled off onto a dirt road and helped her out of the car. She promptly spilled her guts into the roadside ditch, and I used the stuff from our earlier picnic basket to clean her up. Now she was really blubbering, and then she started getting sexual! Now, messing around with a beautiful woman was a great idea to me; on the other hand, getting it on with a recently sick drunk wasn't my idea of romance.

I resisted her advances as she came on more and more directly. We got back in the car, and she pulled her blouse open to show me her bra, then unclipped its front and showed me two delectable breasts, pulling my hand to grasp one. Initially eager, after a moment sufficient to reveal the wonderful liquid heft of one of them, and to roll the nipple that was itself seeming to reach out to me, I reluctantly pulled back and told her I wasn't going to go there as long as she was under the influence. She reached over and grasped my crotch, confirming to us both that I had an erection (hell, back then, seeing peaches in the grocery store gave me erections). I removed her hand quickly (concealing my regret in doing it), and lectured her a bit until she calmed down. Long story short, I got her home, dropped her off after some tears and remorse (good indications she was sobering, along with a return of her bodily control), and walked back to the campus. I knew it wasn't really her fault, due to the drug thing, and I was otherwise smitten, happy with the whole day (figuring when she was really sober I'd have major points on my tally in her mind), making mental plans for more, already considering she may be "the one," and trying to figure how I'd manage the logistics of cross-state travel to see her.

A week later I got a note from her, saying she was sorry, but that she'd gotten engaged, that she shouldn't have led me on, but she needed to know about the guy by being with me for the day, that she really liked me and hoped I'd understand and all the best and such. Lovely Dear John, but a Dear John nonetheless. I was a bit crushed, but it hadn't gotten very far, except in my imagination, so I reconciled pretty quickly and got on with life.

All that came flowing back as I stood looking at Lissa on my front walk. I was curious at the least, and waited for her to continue.

"Could we go in? My mom asked me to look you up."

"Sure," I said, leading her back to the house and into the front room, then going to get us both a soda.

Settled on the couch across from me in a straight chair, she continued. "Mom died six months ago."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I said, with helpless surprise.

"It was pretty quick, a couple of months after her diagnosis, and the doctors kept her comfortable and the end was in her sleep, so it was as gentle as it could be. She had time to get her affairs in order, as they say, and one thing she did was to write me a long letter."

"That's no doubt a treasure to you," I said.

"Yes, but it's also something more. In it, she gave me a list of things she wished she'd done and asked me to do them in her memory after I'd gotten emotionally settled after what she knew would be her death. Accordingly, I've taken a flying lesson, and I've been to the Grand Canyon, and I sat in the audience of her favorite late night TV show, and now I'm here."

I honestly, at that point, had no idea where this was going. "And what's here?" I asked, clueless.

"You're here," she said.

"Well, I think we can agree on that," I smiled, willing to let her get to whatever the point was in her own time.

"Listen, this isn't easy, so I'll just put it out there," she said, taking a deep breath. "Mom said that you were the most gentlemanly guy she'd ever encountered, that my dad, great guy as he was - he's also gone, but that doesn't matter - that he was something of a safe haven to her. What you didn't know at the time was that my grandfather, her dad, had just gotten the word that the company he worked for had gone bust, he was shortly to be let go without benefits, and that meant she'd have to drop out of college since they couldn't afford it until maybe he got a new job, but that was uncertain. My dad, the guy she was dating, had some family money and told her that if she'd marry him, they could finish the university together. He didn't mean it in a bad way, he was just in love and it seemed to make sense. She told me that she grew to love him and their life together, but that she never did feel that swept away feeling she felt with you on that day, and that she always wondered, always had a tinge of regret that she didn't have the courage at the time to go with her heart, which meant to go to you, to take the risk, even though it was such a slim thread, even though you two hardly knew each other."

"Whoa." was about all I could come up with. "Of course, I never knew that - she pretty well ended things, and I didn't want to intrude on something I knew I didn't understand. I am glad it worked out for her, which you're proof of, but I'm sorry she had some regrets, however small, about me. I've thought of her often over the years, and I've got to tell you, I've had the same regrets for not fanning that spark. I didn't realize she felt it as I did - I guess we were both too young to be very good communicators about personal things like that - I just figured I'd lost out on something, wished it had been different and all that. I thank you for telling me this - it makes her memory even more special for me, and while it does rekindle those regrets, I'll always continue to think of her fondly, and sometimes to imagine how we might have made it somehow."

"That's not quite all," she continued. "She told me she always regretted not getting to make love with you that afternoon, even as she was thankful you didn't take advantage of her willingness. She regretted not running off and getting a room somewhere for the night, not finding out how you two would have been, er, together, um, sexually." She paused and took another drink of soda and another breath.

"And so, as she fully expected to be looking down from above on the world at this point, she asked me to do this for her, to find you, to know that she'd be watching and smiling on it. That is, she wanted for me to find you and, if you'd agree, in her memory's honor, for me to go to bed with you."

And with that, she exhaled and sat back, a burden off her shoulders.

I was speechless for a bit, trying to digest all that. Then speechless some more, looking at her, at her lovely curves, her body reminiscent of the little I knew of her mother's at somewhere near that age. I was immediately conflicted, my male nature coming to the fore contemplating making love to a woman decades my junior, quickly wondering if I'd measure up to whatever experiences she'd had with younger men, wanting to say yes immediately. On the other hand, this was pretty much a mercy fuck in some ways that she was presenting. Would thinking about that render me useless, and even if not, did I really want to do that? And what about her? If it weren't for this thing from her mom, Lissa would certainly never have been in my life in any way. Was she just doing this obligation thing, and would I want to foist that onto anyone, much less someone as nice as she?

All that rolled around, jumbled. I finally got my thoughts together enough to speak. "Lissa, that's quite a bit to take in. You're a gorgeous woman, and any man would be no doubt thrilled to go to bed with you. But I'm not used to being a means to paying off some debt, and I'm not spiritually where your mom was, it seems. Even if this were something you really wanted instead of an obligation to Fran, I'd want to know you better beforehand. All in all, I'm not at all sure this is a good idea, but I can tell you that realizing Fran felt that way, and that you'd even consider flattering me in that way are things I'll treasure forever."

"So, is that a no?" she looked at me a bit incredulously - no doubt I was the first male who'd ever come close to spurning her charms.

"I'd say that it's a no for now - just too much to take in and too soon to sort out. What my baser nature is already pressing for, and that I might give in to if you were still around, that I couldn't quite predict."

"OK, fair enough - how about you pick a place and I'll treat you to dinner for being a great memory for mom and for being a gentleman to both her and me."

"Dang - you're all about breaking molds, aren't you? I'm not used to being treated, much less by ladies. But ok, give me a minute to change, and I'll take you to where you'll find the best Italian food this side of Napoli - oh, do you like Italian?"

"Love it - and deal!" she smiled in such a way that it brought back Fran immediately - same jaw line, same ample white teeth, same laughing eyes making it real.

15 minutes later we were on our way across town, and an hour later we were being served a simple linguine with clam sauce that was a favorite of mine, and now hers. We didn't overeat, but ordered the small portions so we could have more courses before and after, and left, some Pinot Grigio later, with my feeling filled but not stuffed, and liking Lissa more and more.

As we pulled back up to my place, I asked Lissa where she was staying, and she said she hadn't arranged that yet, not knowing what the day would bring. Obviously, she expected to bed with me, I guess, and without implying anything, I offered her my spare bedroom. Going back to her car, a rental, she'd revealed - she'd flown in and driven straight to my place, so it was getting to be a long day for her - she pulled a small duffel out of her trunk and we went inside.