Many thanks to LaurieLou for her help in editing this text! If it's readable, thanks to her, all grammatical blunders are mine, of course.
*****
This insane ride began when my friend and squash partner Christian invited me to a friend's dinner. I wasn't really in the mood for being the third wheel in an all-cooey company, still adjusting to being single again after the divorce after more than 25 years of marriage, but Christian waved away my hesitations. His wife Annette, he explained, had put together an amazing guest list. He would not tell anymore. So the day arrived, and I went, of course.
We were 12 people all in all, and I knew about half of them. It was then that I met Claudia. She was in her thirties, petite - maybe 1.60 meters tall, had shoulder-length red hair, and she was cute-iful - you know, beautiful, but more cute than classically beautiful? And her beauty was of that wholesome, pure kind, not the sexual kind, if you know what I mean. The sort of woman you would meet at church, the kind of beauty that Hollywood would use to light up the hopeless lives of hopeless shelters.
She had a radiant smile, too, and the cutest dimples that appeared when the smiled - the kind that make you do anything to see her smile. She wore a brownish-red shade of lipstick, and skillfully applied make-up. Glasses covered her brown eyes, and when I was close enough, I could make out the small wrinkles in her face, the laugh lines. It was then I began to really take notice of her, because I love women - not girls. I love the signs of having lived a life, and have laughed, and for the life of me I could never understand how a woman could possibly want to erase the visible signs of having lived. Maybe that was one of the differences that led to my divorce, but I did not want to linger over that thought.
Claudia was dressed in a long, red dress that just was tight enough to make sure she had curves all right, but not drawing attention to her body. With that, she wore some straightforward, moderate-height heels. I noticed with a hint of disappointment that the heels were closed, having discovered lately how much nicely painted toes turned me on. Still, that was for the best, I felt way out of my league already. After all, I was 50, balding, and while I did not sport a beer belly, I sported more of an 18-pack than a sixpack to my 1.85 meters. On top of that, I was not holding a fancy, high-income job, I was merely a college professor teaching English and German literature.
To my surprise, I found myself in a long and lively discussion with her, and amazingly, she was so easy to talk to. She was the first to understand my dislike of Philipp Roth, and was tolerant enough to weather my inevitable Salman Rushdie-rave. I hadn't felt that alive in ages! Every now and then, she put her hair behind her ear in a short, determined motion with her hands, and that small gesture, that mere flicker of her hand, was something that mesmerized me. She had carefully manicured hands, with long, slender fingers, and something about that began to... well, as I said, she was way out of my league.
And I felt guilty to see her in a sexual light already, and anxious. It had been a long while. Sex had happened twice a year in the later days of my marriage, and then often came with performance problems on my side, so even if my mind kicked into the mindset of an 18-year-old, the body was still that of the 50-year-old.
I willed myself to think about GΓΌnther Grass, and found out that I could make Claudia smile with recounting the most horrible puns by Shakespeare, so I did. I wasn't fooling myself, though; I was falling for this nice, intelligent, beautiful, and wholesome lady. Boy, rarely have I ever been so wrong.
Dinner was wonderful, and Annette was wearing a smug grin when she noticed me talking to Claudia. "She's wonderful,"
I admitted when I helped Annette carry out the dishes.
"How did you meet her?"
"She's in my book club, has just moved here, and is single. That's all I know." Annette laughed though all my pretenses of indifference.
After that, the crowd began to thin out - we had some drinks, and then it was time to leave.
"Share a ride?" Claudia offered.
I may have been out of the dating loop forever, but I wasn't stupid, so I agreed.
In the cab, she snuggled up to me. In the quietness of the car, I noticed a faint humming I had not noticed before.
"Do you hear that humming?" I asked her, not sure if that was real.
"Of course, silly," she replied, and squirmed in a most peculiar manner.
"What's wrong?" I asked, alarmed. She giggled, bent to me and licked my earlobe before whispering into my ear,
"I just came from the vibrating egg I had in my cunt all evening."
I choked, stunned beyond speech and reaction. Surely my imagination must have played a trick on me. But I felt her tongue in my ear now, and her hand on my crotch, and no imagination could have faked that.
"I could use your help in removing it, you know..."
I swear I almost lost it there and then. But we managed to reach her place, and as her door closed, she had me half-naked already. I kissed her, and she wasted no time in feeding me her tongue, but after what seemed like only seconds she turned away.
"I'm not that kind of girl..."
I looked at her, utterly dumbfounded, and I guess it showed.