Combing through my memories, I guess I have to admit that I've had a pretty good life. I also have to admit that when I was younger I did much of my thinking with what I call my reptilian brain, located in the head of my penis. Women can be lustful too, of course. But, for better or worse, they are more likely to fall in love.
I married too young, at 21. No, she wasn't pregnant. We were still in college, living together off campus, and we gave in to strong parental pressure. It was 1970 in a small college town, and our parents considered what they called our "shacking up" to be immoral and unseemly. It wasn't long before I began to see that I had foolishly deprived myself of the varied sexual encounters my friends were experiencing. I was in the prime of life, at my sexual peak. I loved my wife, Penny, but I was troubled -- what had I done? When spring arrived the following year, and with it the usual multitude of cute coeds in their light dresses and bare legs, I became fanatic with lust. I kept it to myself, often masturbating to fantasies when Penny was out.
Penny graduated that spring and immediately took a full-time job to support me, as I took summer classes to finish up. After the fall semester, I would have enough credits.
That was the summer I met Sharon. Penny and I had heard from a friend that a guy named Dennis sold good pot, and we were running low. One evening we just drove to his mobile home back in the woods and knocked on the door -- it was that easy back then. When we told him who sent us, Dennis invited us in. He was tough looking, with a beard and tattoos -- a motorcycle mechanic. He introduced us to Sharon, his "old lady," who was wearing a short dress.
Sharon, who worked part-time as a checkout girl at the local supermarket, was slim, with long, straight, blond hair, parted in the middle. She reminded me of Michelle Phillips, of The Mamas and the Papas, but her hair was oily, with a few snarls, like it hadn't been washed in a while, and she looked like she hadn't slept much lately. OK, she apparently hadn't washed her face that day, either. But it was definitely a cute face, and there were other good parts too -- curves in all the right places.
We all sat down. We didn't have to tell Dennis what we were there for -- he lit a glass pipe for us to try what we were about to buy. Sharon, her legs tucked beneath her, sat next to him on a couch across the small living room. As we passed the pipe around, I began to sneak looks at her. A few times, when Dennis was looking the other way, our eyes met, and that perked me up. Once, I thought I saw her raise her eyebrows. This is good stuff, I thought to myself, but had I imagined it? If not, what did it mean? Ambiguous. Enticing.
My ganja-enhanced daydreaming was cut short by an unexpected question from Dennis: "Would you like to snort some smack?"
Penny and I glanced at each other. We were both surprised, and a bit scared -- we had drawn the line this side of heroin, but we had never before been asked to try it. We held our ground.
"No thanks," I replied.
"No biggie," said Dennis. "Maybe next time. I can sell you that, too. We do it all the time, right Share?" Sharon nodded, but I sensed she was a little uneasy."
Just a few days later, I saw Sharon on the soccer field I was crossing on my way home from class. She had seen me first. As we came closer to each other, she gave me that look again -- the raised eyebrows. This time I returned the look, and she chuckled.
"Hi," she said. She just smiled.
"Hi, yourself," I said, staring into her blue eyes.
It was a hot day, and she was sweaty. She was barefoot, and her feet were dirty. Maybe she had been playing Frisbee earlier, I thought. There was an awkward pause before I took a deep breath and dove in. I heard myself laying it right out there: Although I knew it was wrong, since I was married, I said, I had been very attracted to her the other night. Boy, did honesty pay off: She said she had figured as much, and was attracted to me, too, and that was the reason for the raised eyebrows -- inquiring about the possibilities. I felt a sort of electricity between us. Her eyes were saying, "Take me," and my helpless heart was racing as she said she was as good as married too, and that Dennis would be furious if he thought she was cheating on him.
"He has a gun," she added.
It took a minute to register, through my reptilian thoughts.
"Uh-oh," I said quickly. But that didn't stop me from motioning for her to follow me into the woods. We didn't touch; someone might have noticed.
I found a good spot way back in the trees, with little underbrush. Nervous, guilty, I kissed her. She kissed back. Game on.
We began to nuzzle and pet. She certainly wasn't shy. Sucking my tongue into her mouth, she reached down into my shorts and gently held my penis as it swelled from partial to full erection. Still standing, we stepped away from each other, kicked a few sticks away, kicked off our sandals, and, in unison with nervous giggles, pulled down our shorts and undies. We left our T-shirts on, but I could see pert nipples through hers.