I couldn't keep my eyes off of the elegant older woman sitting in the top row of the bleachers at the matinee of the ritzy horse fair.
I also couldn't help but notice that she was making a less than subtle production out of lowering her designer sunglasses and looking me up and down, smiling in a cat-that-wants-to-swallow-the-canary way. Younger women, or at least women who were my age, didn't begin to know how to smile like that.
The fact that I guessed our ages to be at least twenty years apart did nothing to diminish the palpable chemistry with the impromptu Mrs. Robinson, even from afar. I was reveling in the fact that she was overtly flirting with me, and behind my girlfriend's back. That made it more wickedly exciting, but I didn't expect it to be anything more than it was, harmless flirting with a lady old enough to be my mother.
But, oh, so fucking sexy, in a classy, though coquettishly slutty way. She seemed to look right through me, and I could feel my loins stir as I became legitimately aroused by her brazen staring.
I was diverted from my surreptitious gazing by a nudge and a question by my twenty-three-year-old college sweetheart, Stephanie, who was standing next to me along the railing of the horse ring in the Main Line section of Pennsylvania, home in every May to one of the longest standing traditions in the equestrian world, the Devon Horse Show.
"I said I'm going to get a cotton candy, do you want anything?" Steph tried to follow the direction of my eyes, to no avail, as I quickly turned back to the show. "And what are you looking at, anyway? The horses are over here."
I smiled at Steph and rubbed that spot on the bottom of her backbone that literally made her purr, like clockwork. "I'm fine, baby, nothing for me. Just enjoying the blue sky. You go on ahead, I'll wait here, OK?"
Out of habit, I gave Stephanie a twenty, even though I was struggling for every dollar and Stephanie was the eldest daughter of a Fortune 500 company's top executives.
Steph never seemed to grasp that every once in a while, it might be nice for her to come out of pocket to pay for an event here, a dinner there, a movie every now and then. She had everything handed to her on a silver platter throughout her life.
Me? I was trying to find a better job than my current gig as a landscaping account representative, after having recently been cut by the Cincinnati Reds organization after two years of playing minor league ball in their organization.
Ya know how some armchair athletes recant their glory days, and chalk up the end of their careers to an injury or some other act outside of their control? Well, my sports demise was much more simplistic. I couldn't hit the curve ball.
So, here I was, at age twenty-four, trying to literally decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. I could marry for money, I thought, watching Stephanie disappear into the crowd of fair-goer patrons.
But truth be told, as pretty and aristocratic and wealthy as she was, Steph bored me silly, especially in the bedroom. I was true to her during my brief albeit nomadic baseball career, but had to admit to myself that perhaps that was a mistake.
I sighed inwardly and was still lamenting my fate when I heard the husky though alluring feminine voice just behind me.
Her unmistakable upper-class accent was pure Philly Main Line. To a trained ear like my own, it was an easily recognizable tone of haughty old money, a unique dialect honed over generations in a caste system of the pseudo-elite.
It's hard to describe, exactly, but try to imagine combining the cadence in the voice of Rocky Balboa's wife Adrian with the Duchess of York's. That's old Philly money, trying desperately to outrun its urban roots by pursuing New England-based, Ivy-League educations, but being betrayed every time one opened their mouths to speak.
"That's one of the Cheryl Sanderson's daughters, Stephanie, isn't it? Lovely girl, simply lovely. Is she your little girlfriend, I presume?" The implied arrogance in the question was so pronounced as to be condescending, but then I turned to face the inquisitor and instead, I felt my heart race in tandem with the resumption of the twitching in my shorts. It was Mrs. Robinson, descended from the bleachers. How the fuck did she get down here so fast?
That question was quickly forgotten as the woman invaded my personal space, pressing up next to me along the rail so that her firm breasts pressed into my arm as I peered at her over my half-cocked shoulder, not yet having the chance to turn around fully. Her long, tanned legs bumped into my own as she wrapped an arm under mine, and her sweet scent of expensive European perfume overpowered me, rendering my sense of speech mute.
"Cheryl Sanderson and I are on the board together at Rosemont College." My aggressive mature admirer cooed into my ear as my dick jumped like a show pony in involuntary though discreet mutual admiration. She then changed subjects rather abruptly. "My name is Lynn McDevitt, and you are simply scrumptious. So much cuter than the other young man I saw Little Miss Sanderson with last year at this same event."
While still trying to absorb that blockbuster, I recoiled just a bit and stepped back to take a close-up look at the comely forty-something woman tightly clutching my twenty-four-year-old arm. Though the comparison was not apt at the time, when I look back on the event with the benefit now of twenty-five-plus years hindsight, every time I see Diane Lane today reminds me of how my new friend Lynn McDevitt looked to me on that fateful Spring afternoon of 1985.
Auburn hair with just the hint of gray speckles hung in delightful curls down her bare shoulders. When she finally lowered her shades, her green-brown eyes danced and sparkled in the sunlight with the promise of playful promiscuity. Her tanned and freckled chest was covered just above her proportionate breasts by a white ruffled-collar sleeveless cotton blouse. She wore fashionably pleated khaki shorts with open-toed sandals that perfectly augmented lean yet muscled calves. Main Line chic adorning her tight, athletic mature body. As I said, coquettishly slutty in a high-brow way. Flirty and lusty.
She was......well, flusty. Yeah, that's it. I had invented a word, just for her.
Lynn McDevitt was flusty. Very fucking flusty, indeed.
As much as I was trying to deny my attraction for the overtly ambitious Lynn McDevitt, the fact that she kept pressing her surprisingly firm boobs into my arm caused my personal show pony to keep rearing its precocious head. Down, boy. I was also still trying to come to grips with her statement about Steph at last year's event. Could it be true.....?
My head was spinning from a variety of tactile sensors, when I felt my palm being opened by Lynn's long and persistent fingers and a business card soon filled it. "One o'clock tomorrow. A personal picnic lunch on my veranda." I glanced down at the card with an address scrawled on the back. I not only knew exactly where it was, it was just a few blocks from Stephanie's parents' house. Yes, of course, she still lived with Mommy and Daddy, which meant we had to occasionally get creative for some sexual activity. I harbored no doubts that Lynn McDevitt most definitely did not live with Mommy and Daddy, though the large shining diamond on her left ring finger did give me some ambiguity regarding her relationship status.
Just then, I saw Lynn's face up with contrived glee. "Stephanie, darling! I've just keeping your friend here occupied while you got your candy. He's so yummy, some hungry birdie might try to swoop down and gobble him up. How are you, darling girl?" Stephanie tried to protect herself by waving the stick of cotton candy like a shield, but it was too late. Lynn had planted an overtly insincere bear hug on her.