Twist of Fate

"It's a pity that the two of you never hit it off," she remarked. "I thought you made a nice couple."

Conrad just smiled.

"You'd have certainly been a better match than the geek she married," she added.

"I don't know what to say to that," Conrad replied.

"You don't have to say anything," Linda said. "Warren was June's choice and I should respect that. I'm sure he's a good man under it all, even if I did think he was a little light in the loafers when she first introduced him to me."

Again, never having met the man, Conrad thought it best to keep any comment to himself.

"Ah, dinner's ready," Linda said as the timer went off and, putting her coffee cup back down on the table, she got up and headed back into the kitchen, allowing the topic to fade.

Conrad was unsure if he should follow and started to rise, but Linda said to keep his seat. The kitchen, she explained, wasn't large enough to hold a table and chair, so they'd have to eat in the living room. Saying that was fine with him, Conrad sat back down on the couch.

Linda returned a minute later with the same tray she had used for the coffee, only now it held two plates of Chicken Masala on top of mashed potatoes and greens. Conrad made room on the coffee table and then eagerly took a taste once his hostess had again sat down.

"This is incredible," he said after his first bite.

"I'm glad you think so," Linda smiled. "Like I said, it's just leftovers."

Leftovers or not, Conrad thought it was the best meal he'd had in a very long time. It didn't take long for him to empty his plate, wiping up the last of the gravy with a piece of bread. Linda only ate half of what he did, but seemed just as satisfied.

"You know, I probably shouldn't have made that crack about June's choice of husband earlier," Linda said as she slid her plate a little further away from her, signifying she was done. "After all, I've hardly made the best choices as far as men are concerned."

"What do you mean?" Conrad asked.

"Well, I could start with Thomas, who managed to knock me up almost the first time we did it," Linda noted, "and you met Eddie."

Conrad nodded his head, not wanting to react too strongly to Linda's confirmation of the circumstances of June's conception.

"And there were a few guys before and in between, none really shining examples," she added.

Again, he tried not to react as he recalled June also mentioning that, before she married her father, Linda Harris had a well-deserved reputation as a party girl. Thomas Collins was far from the only one she partied with; he just had happened to be the one left looking for a chair when the music abruptly stopped.

"So, how about you, do you have a girlfriend?" Linda asked, turning the conversation back to him.

"I did, but we broke up back in May," he replied.

"Really, what happened?" Linda inquired as she raised her coffee cup to her lips.

"We'd only been going out a year and she kept bringing up what things would be like after we were married," Conrad answered. "I mean, I'd like to get married someday, but..."

"Oh, you did the right thing," Linda said, cutting him off as she lowered her cup. "You're much too young to get married -- trust me, I know. You've only just started to live your life -- take the time to have some fun before you settle down."

Conrad smiled, thinking that was just about the opposite of what his mother had said when he and Jenny broke up. Martha Lee, like Linda Harris, had also married her high school boyfriend right after graduation, although not for the same reason. Her children, Conrad and his younger brother, hadn't come along until a few years later.

"Do you keep in touch with anyone from the old neighborhood?" Conrad asked, thinking that was a safe enough question.

"Not at all," Linda replied, adding that you'd think she'd moved out to California like Thomas instead of just a few miles away.

"Well, that happens sometimes when you move, even if it's only a short distance," Conrad offered, thinking how he'd lost track of friends who moved, or even just started moving in different circles. June, he realized, was a prime example.

"Oh, it started long before I moved," Linda interjected. "In fact, probably on the day after Thomas and I separated, or at least as soon as the story hit the gossip mill. Practically overnight I became not much better than a scarlet woman, even if I hadn't been the least bit unfaithful."

Conrad had read the classic book during high school, but couldn't understand what it had to do with Linda being divorced.

"Have you ever noticed, Conrad," Linda tried to explain, "that most people in the neighborhood have lived there all of their lives? In fact, I doubt few of them live more than a couple of blocks from where they were born. For them, time has pretty much stood still, with little having changed since they were your age -- and that includes how they view the world."

Conrad still didn't seem to understand.

"If I were a forty-three-year-old spinster," she said, "then I'd be an object of pity, having been assumed to have never known the touch of a man. But since I was married, and well aware of what passes between men and women, my actions now that I no longer have a man of my own are suspect. the fear being that I might look to steal one of theirs."

"That's ridiculous," Conrad pointed out.

"To you perhaps, but not to them," Linda replied. "Not only because it demonstrates that marriage didn't have to be forever, but because some of them don't trust their husbands around a woman who might lure them into her bed."

"But wouldn't that say more about their husbands than you?" Conrad asked.

"Yes, but they didn't see it that way," Linda replied, adding with a chuckle. "As if I thought any of them were prizes worth seducing."

Conrad had never really thought about it much, but Linda was right about people not moving out of the neighborhood. His parents had been born only blocks from where they lived now, and his grandparents, all now retired, still lived in the houses their children grew up in. He couldn't speak for what she said about how they viewed someone who got divorced, but he had no reason to doubt her.

"Well, I'm going to clear the dishes and get myself a refill," Linda said, changing the topic as she got to her feet. "Would you like one?"

"Sure, why not?" he replied as he started to get up to help her.

"It'd be easier if I just do it myself," Linda noted as she stacked one plate on top of the other. "Tight kitchen, remember?"

-=-=-=-

Linda returned a few minutes later with their drinks, setting his down in front of him before returning to the chair on the other side of the coffee table. They each took a sip of the hot brew before continuing.

"You know, I just realized that I've been dominating the conversation," Linda said once she'd returned with their drinks. "There must be some questions that you want to ask."

"I... I don't think so," Conrad replied after a noticeable hesitation.

"Oh, come on, I can see it in your eyes," Linda remarked. "You can ask, I won't be offended. You're not some high school kid speaking to one of your friend's mothers any more. We're two adults having a little talk over coffee."

As true as that might be, Conrad couldn't imagine doing so with any of the parents of his other friends. Still, even back during school, Mrs. Collins had been quite different from the other parents, and it wasn't just because of how she looked. Despite the difference in age, she always talked to you as almost an equal, unlike most parents who constantly stressed the difference in their social status. And since she had asked, there was something he was curious about.

"How did you wind up with someone like Eddie?" he said. "I mean, he doesn't seem like your type."

"Really, and what would my type be?" Linda softly laughed.

He opened his mouth, but didn't have an answer.

"Much like a man, a woman has needs," she said. "I assume that you're old enough to realize that. Needs that don't fade away simply because she's no longer married."

"Oh, err... sure," Conrad replied uneasily, the sex lives of his parent's generation not being a topic he or his own friends readily discussed.

"Oh, come on, don't look so embarrassed," Linda laughed. "People don't stop having sex just because they've gotten a bit older. Believe it or not, I'm willing to bet that even your mother and father still enjoy the occasional romp."

'Probably,' Conrad thought, but that didn't mean that he had to think about it.

"Sex is a normal part of life," Linda said, "one that people have every right to enjoy."

"Not according to the nuns and priests at Blessed Cross," he offered, recalling the many afternoons he and classmates had been lectured on the evils of sex.

"Oh, what do they know?" Linda laughed. "How does that line go again? If you don't play the game, you don't get to make the rules."

Conrad didn't laugh, but he did smile. The actual comment, made by the President's Agriculture Secretary last year in reference to Church policies, had been much cruder.

"You enjoy sex, don't you, Conrad?" she asked with no more hesitation than she'd earlier asked if he'd like a second helping of potatoes. "I mean, you have had sex by now, haven't you?"

"Sure, of course," he heard himself answer, trying to make it sound as if he was more experienced than he was.

"And I assume that the girls you've been with also enjoy sex," she added.

Conrad replied that he assumed they did.

"You assume?" Linda repeated, then added. "Honey, if you don't know for sure then you might not be doing it right."

Although she wasn't about to say so, that was the reason her short-lived relationship with Eddie had fizzled. The burly fifty-two-year old had come highly recommended by a friend who, having also once dated him, offered that, while he wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, he was pretty good in the sack. An opinion that Linda hadn't shared, as she needed more than a man who just climbed on top and pumped away until he was exhausted. Something that, in Eddie's case, turned out to be far too short a time to get her anywhere near the finish line.

"What about the girl you just broke up with, Jenny was her name, right?" Linda went on. "Did she enjoy having sex with you?

"Jenny and I never..." he replied, his voice trailing off before finishing the sentence.

"But you wanted to, right?" she said.

Conrad nodded his head. The truth was that he'd wanted to have sex with Jenny in the worst way, but the most she'd do was get him off with her hand. He'd tried to get her to use her mouth on his last birthday, but she said that was something she would only do for a fiancé, the unspoken implication being that anything further would be for her wedding night.

His own deflowering, if you could use that term for a guy, had come the summer after high school graduation, during a trip to his uncle's place down in Pennsylvania. The girl involved, a neighbor, had literally been the farmer's daughter, but all Conrad could say about the experience was that it was as short as it was sweet.

"Most girls are still taught that sex is something that should only be part of marriage," Linda continued, "which seems a bit archaic in this day and age, but many still believe it."

Without realizing he was doing so, Conrad nodded his head, as he thought Jenny had been one of them.

"If a woman wants to wait until her wedding night, that's her prerogative," she went on. "Yet by the same light, she shouldn't be condemned if she decides not to."

She paused for a breath.

"You've had sex, and you're not married," she noted. "Do you feel guilty for having done so?"

Conrad said that he didn't; in fact, if anything, he felt quite lucky.

"So, why should a woman be made to feel any different?" she said.

"I guess she shouldn't," he said.

"Exactly," Linda concluded before adding after a long pause. "Forgive me, I went way off track there, didn't I? I was supposed to be explaining what I saw in Eddie."

Conrad merely shrugged that it wasn't important, having found where the conversation had gone fascinating.

"The honest answer is really quite simple," Linda said in a calmer tone. "I hadn't been laid in over a year and, quite honestly, I missed it."

"What?" Conrad said, so startled by her answer that he almost spilled his coffee all over the carpeted floor.

"I missed being fucked, it's that simple," Linda reiterated in the same level tone. "Say what you want about Thomas, and believe me, I've said a lot over the years, but the man knew how to get the job done."

Linda's candor had gone way beyond anything Conrad could've imagined and it reflected on his face. If it hadn't been for the dinner and coffee that they'd had over the last hour, he might've just chalked it up to her having had too much to drink at Sullivan's. But, even when they'd first gotten to her apartment, the older woman had demonstrated a sobriety that said she'd barely imbibed.

"Oh, come on, like I said before, you're not a kid any more," Linda said in response to his reaction. "We already established that a woman enjoys sex as much as a man, even if many won't say that out loud. If she doesn't, well, I would hope you'd find that out before the two of you wind up at the altar."

'God, that would be terrible,' Conrad thought, recalling a comment he'd overheard his aunt make to his mother about how she was relieved that her husband had finally lost interest in sex.

Linda had risen to her feet during her little soliloquy, and when she sat back down, it was again next to Conrad on the couch. Considering the conversation over the last few minutes, her nearness now made his heart beat a bit faster and a warm flush washed across his body.

-=-=-=-

"Conrad, I'm not making you feel uncomfortable, speaking so honestly, am I?" Linda asked, noting a change in his reaction.

"No," he said, the brevity of his reply making it suspect.

"Good, because I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable," Linda smiled. "I'm just finding it very easy to talk to you, and, to be honest, I think you've grown into quite the handsome young man. You don't mind my saying that, do you?"

Again, Conrad replied with the shortest of answers.

"Do you find me attractive, Conrad?" Linda unexpectedly asked. "I've wondered because, well back when you used to hang around the house with June's other friends, I was sure that I caught you staring at me a few times. I never said anything about it because I didn't want to embarrass you, especially if I was only imagining it, but now, well, let's just say I'm curious if you actually were."

Conrad didn't know exactly how to answer that. He had sometimes spent more time staring at her than might've been considered appropriate, but he had hardly been the only one. Linda was an attractive woman, pretty rather than beautiful, which in the long run was probably better as the former came naturally while the latter required constant work. And now, without the context of just looking at her as someone's wife or mother, he was seeing her in an even more different light.

"I think you're pretty," he finally replied.

"For an old lady, you mean," she grinned.

"I don't think you're old," Conrad said. "I mean, you don't come across that way."

"You know, I'm only a few years younger than your mother," she noted.

Conrad never really considered that, even though he knew it was true. The gap between the two women seemed a lot larger than what the calendar said.

"...but still, they say how long you've lived isn't as important as how you live," she added, which seemed to agree with his statement.

Conrad smiled, trying to dispel some of the nervousness he was feeling.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," Linda said in a conspiratorial tone as she leaned in closer, "I used to look at the young men June invited over. In fact, I sometimes even fantasized about them. You might find it shocking, but a few times I even imagined one of them in bed with me instead of my husband."

She paused for a breath, searching Conrad's face for a reaction. When none, at least none definitive, was found, she continued.

"Of course, it was just harmless fun," she said, "and I'm sure there were times that Thomas imagined one of June's girlfriends taking my place. But, now that I've admitted my secret, I have to ask, did you ever fantasize about older women, or more pointedly, did you ever fantasize about me?"

Conrad didn't voice his answer, but the sudden redness in his face said he had.

"What did you fantasize about?" Linda asked.

"I'd rather not say," he replied.

"Oh, come on," Linda laughed. "I'm really curious."

When he still didn't answer, Linda asked if he ever had any fantasies about June.

That was easier to admit, because they had been the same age and, after all, they had dated for a while.

"The things you thought about doing with June, were they the same things that you thought about doing with me?"

"Yes," he admitted, his face growing even more crimson.

"Hmm, what might they have been?" she asked, then answered her own question. "Well, I know that you liked my daughter's breasts; she does have nice breasts. Did you think about seeing my breasts too?"

'Oh God, June did tell her about that night we parked,' Conrad realized.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," Linda went on when he didn't answer. "I honestly don't think my breasts are as impressive as June's, at least not now. What do you think?"

Without even realizing he was doing it, Conrad's gaze dropped to Linda's breasts, in a motion too conspicuous to be misinterpreted. Rather than be offended as he might have expected, Linda had an opposite reaction.

"I really don't think you can make a fair comparison like that," she laughed.

Before Conrad could react, Linda rose to her feet and, standing right in front of him, grabbed the sides of her dress, pulling it up and over her head. Before the outfit even hit the floor, she was reaching for the clasp on her bra, undoing it with ease. Then, just as casually, she slid the straps of the undergarment down her arms and tossed it on top of the now crumpled dress.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked as she stood there topless, her hands resting on her hips.

'Holy shit!' Conrad cried out in his head, even as he found it impossible to take his eyes off her well-proportioned mounds.

The memory from that night he'd parked with June again filled his thoughts as Conrad compared Linda's breasts with those of her daughter. If he could check the tag on the bra now resting by his feet, he would see it read 34C, the same as June's. Time had taken some toll on their buoyancy, but the rounded orbs, and the bright pink nipples that capped them, were still impressive.

Linda brought her hands up to her breasts, cupping them tightly as she rubbed away the stiffness, the tips of her fingers rolling across her quarter sized areolae, causing her nipples to harden even more.

"Not what they were in my prime, but still not bad for an old lady," Linda quipped as she removed her hands and restored Conrad's view.

Again, Conrad couldn't take his eyes off them

"They still feel pretty nice too, maybe even as nice as June's," Linda devilishly added. "Why don't you take a feel and tell me if they do?"

Without waiting for a reply, Linda dropped down next to Conrad and, taking his hands in hers, placed the palms of both against her breasts. Reacting instinctively, the younger man gripped the warm softness in his hands, squeezing them softly.

"Nice, huh?" Linda asked.

"Mrs. Collins, what are you doing?" Conrad said as the reality of what was happening suddenly caught up with him.

"Linda, remember?" she said in reply, making no move to pull back as she added, "And I would think what I'm doing was rather obvious."