I was really having a stressful day. I had ad sales breathing down my neck; we needed to change some things. Local ad insertion wasn't meeting demand, we weren't generating the required funds and our production team seemed to be half stepping through the commercial process. In the meanwhile, my wife announced she wanted a divorce. I think she was seeing a guy from her work but by this point I just did not care anymore. The child support was going to be painful but I intended to keep seeing my two boys no matter what. They were only eight and six. I was not going lose that. So, like most men, I occupied myself with my work. I immersed myself in it. No room to think just be. I was like a walking zombie. I was alive but not living, functioning but only barely able to breath.
Susan, my wife had left for Atlanta for a business conference that morning. She called Mary to come stay with the kids while I was at work. We had known Mary since she was twelve or something. She lived down the road in a lower rent district but she was a great kid. Mary was now eighteen and a senior in the local school. She was a cheerleader, on the tennis and softball teams and had grown into the realm of being a real cutie pie. Mary was tall, about six foot tall, with long black hair, dancing eyes, a gorgeous mouth, colored red and long fingers and red nails. If I said I didn't notice Mary, I would be lying. Especially when you consider a man in my condition. I had not had sex in so long it was brutal. I still am an attractive man for being in my mid forties. I know this as I know I am not ugly or fat. I work out. I am a retired as a gunnery sergeant from the Marines. This was years before taking up television advertising as a local manager for a cable company. I had grown used to the fact I rarely saw my wife, but Mary was at the house most nights when I came home, watching the children as Sue always seemed to have a meeting some place. I no longer fought about it.
This particular night something was decidedly different, and I want to just was happy to get home. It was a Friday, all we did that could be done was done, and I wanted to go home early. Maybe have a few drinks, put on the television and play with the kids. I got in my nice expensive sports car and headed home trying to determine what superficial toys I had that meant anything when your love life is down the drain and your wife of a decade and a half is now going away. What I believed to be just another long night was certainly about to unravel. Only then I opened the door to a house I did not recognize. My favorite country music was playing low and the house was darkened. Candles burnt on the table. The smell of dinner was in the air. I walked through my house, barely recognizing where I was. A strange, sweet perfume hung in the air.
"There you are!" Mary said smiling. "Your home early! I hope you don't mind, but Mrs. Peavy came and got the boys. They wanted to stay at Jakes house overnight. I said it was ok. You don't mind do you?" Well, at first, I really thought Mary was being a bit presumptive, and had way overstepped her bounds. She was simply the babysitter and not in charge of things like this.
"I made you your favorite. Steak and salad, rare as you like it. Tortillas and salsa. Is that ok?" Her gorgeous brown eyes seemed to plead for acceptance. How could I stay mad? She was so young and so cute and really trying to please me. She seemed to twitch with nervousness. I really smiled, as she was so cute and trying so hard to please me. I just had to agree.
"That's fine, Mary. Are you staying for supper?"
"If it is ok with you, I would love to."
"It is Friday night. Don't you have a date tonight? Teen girl like you probably has some place better to be than sitting here with this old man!"
"No, Mr. Giles,' I broke up with my boyfriend last week. 'Remember, I told you." She threw her head back and laughed. "He was boring me, anyways. He was so immature!" I found that one amusing. I wanted to say something but I didn't. Mary did carry herself beyond her years. No matter, she was trying to impress and one look at that long lean body was finding its mark upon me.
Not really, I then thought. My life has become such a wreck I could not remember what anyone told me about anything at all. Still, I looked at Mary. She seemed really to be going all out. She was clad in a simple white sundress, maybe on the short side, and her long tanned legs seemed to tremble. I looked her over again as she stood before me with her arms behind her back. So innocent yet so tantalizing at the same time. Such a beautiful woman-child. I really, for a moment, wanted to reach over and grab this girl and take her into my arms. Reality set back in, shortly. She is way too young, I am married and she probably doesn't even intend to do what she is doing to me. I need a shower.
