Since we live in a small ski town in Idaho, I've gone ahead and changed our names so no one will recognize us. It's a cool place to live, but everyone knows everyone so I will change just enough. In a town this size, you mix and match with all kinds of people that you normally wouldn't. We have a lot of events and festivals all year so you get to work with and meet everyone in town at some point. I was on a set-up crew for an annual event with an older sassy lady named Edna, but due to her firecracker personality and thick southern drawl she was known around town as Dixie Eddie.
We had worked on this crew for several years and had gotten to know one another well enough as time went on. Well enough to be familiar, but not in a flirty way. She was like everyone's grandma on the team, you know? She had to be 35 years older than me, at least, and as a macho 30-year-old guy, I just wasn't seeing her like that. She was sweet, sassy, confident and, well...old. Everyone liked Eddie, but you treat women like that with respect.
One night at the end of the summer, I was out having some beers with a pal and we left the bar just before midnight. As we were passing the art gallery next door, I noticed the lights were still on, and there was loud music playing inside. My friend headed off, but for some reason, my curiosity got the better of me and when I saw Eddie inside dancing around with a glass of wine in her hand, I had to find out what was going on! What a crazy party I had stumbled onto!
I rapped on the glass and Eddie whirled around to see me smiling and waving there. She almost laughed and zipped straight on over to let me in.
"Oh, hey Ricky!" She sort of blurted out, and hustled me inside. This was one of those fancy-ass ski-town art galleries that sold $20,000 paintings of the mountains for a rich jerk's 3rd house. The lights were off like the gallery was closed, but on like someone was working inside. Not unusual in itself, but it was near midnight and these places normally close up around 8pm.
"Having a party?" I asked with a grin. She obviously was.
"The rich jackass who owns this place fired me today, so I've decided to drink all of his most expensive wine while I pack up my things!" she declared triumphantly. That got a good laugh out of me. Jobs in this town are easy to come by, but quality employees aren't, and he was letting go of a pillar of the community.
"Well hey, fuck that guy!" I said, helping myself to a glass of his 1952 whatever-the-hell-it-was. And we drank and laughed and she packed up her stuff. I could tell that she was upset, but also that my validation made her feel instantly better. No one likes getting fired. She said that she'll be alright but could probably use a hug, and I obliged. I'm easily a foot taller than she is and it was easy to wrap her up in my long arms and give her a little squeeze. There was nothing strange or awkward about it.
But something in that moment clicked. The lights, the music, the wine, her vulnerability, our new strange connection that made me see her differently than I had even considered in that instant. And she looked up at me without letting go and as our faces were so close and...
I kissed her.
I kissed her small old mouth with my young eager tongue. She accepted it with grace and the excitement of someone who wasn't expecting to be kissed, but very much welcomed it. It was electrifying! I can still feel her in my arms, reaching up around my neck and pulling me into her mouth. The kiss was magical. It did not feel like the kiss you get from your granny, and as we broke the kiss and slowly backed away, we gazed deep into each other's eyes and you could FEEL the connection grow with sparks into flames.
"Wow, Ricky, I had NO IDEA!" she gasped.
"Holy shit, Eddie, I'm not gonna lie. Neither did I!" I breathed out at last.
We came back in and kissed again, mouths on fire for one another, tongues darting in and out of each other's mouths. Hungry, passionate kissing unlike any I have ever experienced. What was this new amazing sensation? How could I be making out THIS HARD with a woman more than twice my age? And why was it so incredible? The questions swirled in my mind even as my tongue swirled in her mouth. After a small eternity passed with our faces pressed together she pulled away and managed to blurt out,
"Well shit, it seems I've had too much wine to drive all my stuff home. Any chance you could help me?"
"Of course!" I said. I certainly wasn't just going to abandon her there. Plus, my head was abuzz with all of these new sensations and I was hoping to maybe get one more kiss when I dropped her off at home. Horny boy that I was!
We packed her stuff into her truck and drove it the 10 minutes across town, making fun of the idiot gallery owner who was doomed to fail, and how she was better off without that lousy job. Just trying to make her feel okay about it. I can tell you now, she was already done with that job and was thinking about a different one!
We got up to the door of the building, and I just stood there not knowing which apartment to go up to.
"I'm 2-D," she said after seeing me looking around.
"I'm which key," I asked dangling her key ring in front of her. She laughed and grabbed them out of my hand and let us in to apartment 2-D. I brought her box of stuff in and sat it down on a stack of stuff inside. She was not expecting visitors, judging by the stacks of stuff everywhere. Her apartment was a single room with a kitchen on one side, and a giant bed in the middle of a sea of stuff. Habit trails were cut through to let her get at everything, but this was definitely a room that didn't have more than one person in, for a WHILE. I felt honored that she would let me into her inner sanctum and she called me over to the kitchen.