(Author's note: welcome, one and all, to the final chapter of the first act of Amy's story! If this is your first time here, I would advise you to go back and read the previous chapters to get the full story. If you can't be bothered to do that, here's the gist: these stories chronicle the summer of 1993, when young Amy Lefebvre turns eighteen, graduates high school, and throws herself headlong into the world of adulthood by indulging her sexual desires for much older men. Read on to find out more...)
***
Amy Lefebvre sat in a deck chair in her backyard on Friday afternoon, and felt supremely contented. The past week—the five days since her eighteenth birthday—was on the shortlist for best week of her life. The days had been entirely carefree, filled with hangouts and video games and comics, while the nights been incredibly exciting and maybe a little dangerous, as she went out each evening in search of new sexual partners. She had embraced adulthood with gusto, taking advantage of her new legal status to sleep with a growing collection of older men. In four days, she'd had sex with five men, ranging in age from thirty-six to forty-seven. The men in question had varied widely, from a married banker to a pair of hard-living factory workers. And that was just what she'd hoped for; she wanted to experience the full range of what the world of men had to offer.
So now she lay in recline, appreciating how lucky she'd been and pondering where the future might take her. A perspiring glass of lemonade rested on the chair's arm. Amy was dressed in denim shorts, a white t-shirt, and dark sunglasses. The sun shone brightly overhead; maybe she'd finally get a little colour on her pale skin.
As she speculated idly about where the coming evening might find her, she suddenly felt a small pang of guilt. A number of her classmates were planning on attending a house party that night, and Amy's two best friends, Daisy and Mary, had been deeply disappointed when Amy had said she wouldn't be going with them. She would have loved to, truly; they always had a great time at those things. But she had only a limited amount of time before her dad returned from his vacation to Newfoundland, and she planned to squeeze in as many dalliances with older men as she could in that time. The just-out-of-high-school boys who would be at the party just didn't do it for her.
Amy hoped the girls had fun at the party, and smiled a little wickedly at the thought. The two of them were very different in that respect: Daisy Choi was renowned among the boys of their age group for both her skill at and eagerness to perform blowjobs. Amy had lost count of the number of guys she'd swallowed at this point. Surely she'd find some lucky boy at the party to lavish her attention on. Mary Gilder, on the other hand, had never even kissed a boy as far as Amy was aware, always insisting she "wasn't ready for anything like that", a prudishness that had inevitably earned her the nickname "the Virgin Mary" (which she hated.) She'd have to find something else to entertain her while Daisy did her business. Amy once again felt guilty that she wouldn't be there to keep Mary company.
Stop it!
she chided herself,
Mary is a grown woman, she doesn't need a babysitter. The girls will get along just fine without me
. She couldn't be faulted for wanting some time to herself, she decided. She'd make it up to the girls after her father was back and life had resumed a certain normalcy. She was hoping that she would still be able to find time to steal away for her hookups once routine was restored, but she knew that their frequency would have to decrease dramatically. So she could hardly be blamed for wanting to pack as many as possible into the two-week period that she was in the house alone, with no job and indeed no real responsibilities to speak of whatsoever. In short, there would never be a better time for her to get laid.
So far, her strategy had been beautiful in its simplicity: every night that week she had simply headed over to the town's premier watering hole, the Angry Moose, and picked a guy out of the crowd to share the night with. There were always lonely men to be found in a bar. However, she knew that if she continued going regularly, she would probably start running into some of the same men she'd previously slept with, and she wasn't quite sure what she'd do in that situation. She wasn't averse to hooking up with any of them again in the future, but for the moment she was trying to cast her net wide, rack up as many individual experiences as she could, and she wasn't sure how that would play out if there were previous conquests around. She was considering mixing up her playbook a little, starting as simply as checking out one of the handful of other bars in town.
Maybe next week
, she thought. Tonight at least she hoped to go back to the Moose, to check out the Friday crowd. She took another sip from her drink.
"Well, isn't this a lovely sight!" she heard a voice call from off to her left. She sat and up and turned her head, and sure enough, there he was. Grant McNeil, her handsome fifty-three-year-old neighbour, the man largely responsible for her sexual fixation on older men, looking at her from over the fence that divided their yards. Tall and broad, with neat grey hair, he wore a collared shirt and slacks, looking very businesslike.
"If I'd known I'd have an audience, I would have put on my bikini!" she said with a laugh. Something she probably wouldn't have said a week ago. These past few days had really done wonders for her confidence. "How's it going, Grant?"
"Oh, not bad, not bad," he said. "It's Friday night and I just got home from work, so I'm pretty happy."
"What, they didn't give you the day off?"
"Today
or
yesterday! The plant never sleeps," he said.
"Well, would you care to come over and join me for some lemonade? You've been working so hard, you should relax a little."
"You know, that sounds lovely," he said. "I think I just might." He stepped down and began walking around the fence, and Amy got up to let him in at the gate. As he stepped into the Lefebvre backyard, Amy reached up and wrapped him in a hug, which seemed to take him by surprise, but he returned it after a moment.
"Sit down, make yourself comfortable," said Amy. "Just give me a sec to go inside and get you a glass." She turned and entered the house through the sliding back door, and only then allowed herself to notice how her heart was pounding. She took a deep breath and continued into the kitchen, her hands shaking as she poured a large glass of lemonade. It was happening. The man she had dreamed of all her life was here, in her backyard, just the two of them. She was serving him drinks. And she had never been more terrified.
Just calm down
, she told herself.
Be cool. Breathe in. Count to ten. He's been over here a million times before, this is nothing special.
She still felt incredibly nervous, but had at least managed to get her shaking hands under control by the time stepped back outside and handed Grant his glass. She sat down in the chair next to his.
"I haven't seen your dad around all week," said Grant after taking a sip. "What's he been up to?"
"He's clear across the country. On vacation to Newfoundland! It's just me this week and next week, here all alone."
"What? That's incredible! He didn't mention anything about a vacation to me."
"Well, it was a surprise. I'm actually kind of relieved to hear you say that, I was kinda half-worried he'd have asked you check in on me and report to back to him, or something like that."
"Come to think of it, why aren't you out there with him? Kind of odd to go on vacation without your kid, isn't it?"
"I actually wanted it this way! I just turned eighteen and just finished high school, so I wanted to have some time on own, to be the woman of the house. Get a taste of being an adult in charge of my own destiny."
"See, when I was your age—long time ago, now—that meant getting
out
of the house. The year I turned eighteen, me and two of my cousins took my Uncle Al's car and drove to the west coast and back. Made it all the way to Nanaimo!"
"Sounds like fun!" said Amy. "I do hope there's some more travelling in my future, but right now, I'm really enjoying just being right here."
"Well, that's good to hear," said Grant. "And I know I already said it the other day, but happy birthday." He raised his glass to her, and she followed suit.
"Thanks!" she said, and drank. "So, did you ever go the other way? You ever make it to Newfoundland?"
"Yes indeed!" said Grant. "I've been to every province and both territories in my time. It's quite a country we've got here."
"This is my dad's first time out East," said Amy. "But I go once or twice a year, to visit my mom."
"I'd forgotten she was out there!" said Grant. "Your dad's not staying with her, is he?"
"Yep, that was his plan."
"Will that not be a little awkward?"
"Oh, they get along pretty good these days. The divorce was finalized, like, eight years ago, they've had a lot of time to calm down. And having thousands of miles between them most of the time helped, I'm sure."
"You don't think they're... getting back together or anything, do you?"
"Oh God, no!" said Amy. "What are you doing, man, making me think about my parents having sex?"
"I said nothing of the sort!" said Grant with a laugh.
"Well, much as I hate to admit, it would probably be good if he had sex with
