This story involves a young man who is a virgin, and a woman over three times his age. Therefore, this is both a "first time" story and a "mature" tale.
*
This wasn't the way that most guys my age want to spend the summer before heading off to college, I recall thinking as I looked out the kitchen window to the tiny yard and the postage stamp lawn that might take me all of a minute to mow tomorrow.
The house and the yard had belonged to my grandmother, who had been in and out of the hospital for the last couple of years, and had finally succumbed to a variety of illnesses last week at the ripe old age of 82.
While much of the rest of my family had abandoned Grandma, I had continued to visit her in her declining years, which was how I ended up with the dubious honor of going through her stuff and shutting the house down so that it could be sold.
It was while I was taking a break from the house cleaning that I saw the woman who had lived next door for as long as I could remember, puttering around in her back yard. All I really knew about her was her name, Anna.
She was a tiny woman who lived alone in the modest bungalow at the end of the street, nestled between the woods and my Grandma's place. She looked older than I remembered when I had seen her last year, her black hair now more streaked with grey and pulled back in a bun.
When she saw me, she gave a timid wave before heading over to the fence. I went out to meet her. After she expressed her condolences about my grandmother's passing, she asked about what was going to happen to the house.
"I don't know," I said. "They just sent me here to try and make sense out of her belongings. My folks and the rest of the vultures will take what they want, and then I guess the place will get sold."
"New neighbors," Anna said, shuddering visibly. "Just the thought of that bothers me. I was so used to your grandmother. She was such a nice lady. I guess we got along pretty well because we were alike in many ways. She loved you very much, but you know that. She always said that Tommy was her favorite - the only one that would bother with her."
"Oh, I don't know about that," I mused, but had to admit that Anna was right.
"It was good that she had someone that cared about her," Anna said softly. "Being alone is..."
Anna left the sentence unfinished, but I sensed that she knew what being alone was all about. I had never seen anybody besides her next door, and while I recall Grandma saying something about her being married at one time, I gathered that her husband had passed away.
After we chatted for a few more minutes, Anna asked me if she would like to come over for dinner. I had mentioned that I had been depleting Grandma's cupboards during my stay, and when the tiny woman invited me, I realized I had backed myself into a corner and so I accepted.
***
Much like my grandmother's house was, Anna's felt like a museum to me, with all of these little nick-knacks and doilies all over the place. I had gotten as dressed up as the limited wardrobe I brought here would allow, and after Anna complimented me on how I looked, she brought me into the kitchen for dinner.
Gradually, my nervousness faded as we began conversing. We kept the topics light and avoided talking about my Grandma, and after I helped my hostess with the dishes she brought me into the living room.
At that point, I have to admit that I was trying to figure out the most graceful way to end the evening. Anna was very nice and all, but I figured she had to get to bed early like Grandma always did.
"Do you have any children?" I asked as we sat on her couch, which was probably older than I was, and found my eyes going to Anna's legs for some reason
The pale limbs were very slender, and the fact that they weren't all that bad for a woman her age probably got my attention for longer than they should have, because she caught me looking at her as she answered.
"No, I - we couldn't have children," Anna said sadly. "I wanted children so badly. My husband - he did too. That why we - he left me."
"Oh," I answered, regretting that I had picked the wrong topic for conversation. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Not your fault," Anna replied, patting me on the arm and giving my limb a little squeeze. "Anyway, I suspect that you must be a very responsible young man, seeing as how they left you in charge of gathering everything up and all."
"If anybody suspected that Grandma had anything of value, I'm sure the vultures would have swooped in," I opined. "So far, I've found about a dollar in pennies and about a dozen empty bottle of seltzer water."
"Don't spend it all in one place," Anna suggested, and I shared in her laughter.
Anna had an adorable laugh, as petite as the woman it came out of, and as we talked I found myself getting more attracted to her. I wanted to ask her how old she was, because it was hard to tell from her appearance. I suspected that she could be anywhere from 55 to 75, although the fact that she still worked made me lean toward the lower end of that scale.
There weren't very many pictures around, but there was one of Anna when she was very young, probably in her twenties. She was a cute woman back then even if the picture looked like something from the twenties. Even then Anna had her hair in that little bun, which made her look a bit like a spinster.
"What grade are you going to be in next fall?" Anna asked when the conversation turned to me, and when I told her that I was going to be a sophomore in college she got flustered.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Anna said apologetically when I told her I was going to be 20 next winter.
"I know I look like a kid," I offered, knowing that my nerdish appearance made my age tough to figure out.
"No, it isn't that," Anna said. "It's just that your grandmother - the way she spoke about you, I always got the impression you were still a child."
"I don't think Grandma ever understood that I was getting older," I admitted. "I was always afraid that for Christmas she would give me something like those pink bunny pajamas that Ralphie got in The Christmas Story."
Anna started giggling at that, and squeezed my arm as she leaned against me, coming so close that I could smell the ancient perfume she used, a pleasant scent but something that seemed from around era.
"As a matter-of-fact," Anna said when she stopped laughing. "The way you act - you're very mature. It's almost like you're older than your years."
Anna had a point there, I admitted to her, because I always seemed to relate well to people older than me.
"I'm square," I confessed. "Maybe I was born too late, because I don't like the stuff I'm supposed to like. Stuff guys my age are into, like rap music and reality television - things like that. I'd rather watch MASH or The Honeymooners than any of the junk that's on the tube these days."
"There's nothing wrong with being square," Anna told me, motioning toward the television that looked as old as me. "I hardly ever turn it on, except for the news. So, do you have a lady friend?"
"Me? No," I said.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so nosy," Anna said. "I mean, you might not even be..."
"Interested in girls?" I said in finishing her thought. "No, I'm very interested in girls."
