"You
can't
be serious!"
They're just teasing, I concluded, and laughed at the joke I didn't quite understand yet. Melissa, by best friend's daughter, and her boyfriend David were playfully pulling my wrist as if to drag me with them to some undisclosed destination.
"They must have some kind of age limit!"
"Eighteen. You have to be at least eighteen to get in," Melissa said with a girlish giggle.
"No, I mean, what age to you have to be
under?
"
"You're way too self-conscious," David continued. "I can assure you--I'll lay good money on it--every male in the club will be bug-eyed and tongue-tied when they see you."
"A thirty-four year old suburban wife in a club built for 18-plusesβmeaning, plus just a little?"
"Mrs. Carey..."
"Sandy, just Sandy. It's not like we've just been introduced or something."
"Sandy, I can tell you; it's the absolute truth," David chimed in. "I swear--I know a dozen guys from our senior class last year who have the hots, big-time, for Mrs. Carey. I'm not sure you'd care to know just exactly how they expressed that, but I mean it, guaranteed: you're...ah..." He paused, unsure if he should speak the number, despite the fact that I had said it just moment's before. "You're...well...thirty-four, going on eighteen!"
Melissa giggled again, charmingly.
I must admit, I did feel quite a glow. A married woman of my age, even one with an adorable, if too-often absent husband like mine, tends to put dreams of turning the heads of young men at large aside. Dean and I had no complaints in the sex department; he was considerate, patient and plenty hot when the steam built up; and, unless he's putting on a great act, he makes me feel like I'm pretty hot and special, too. But he's my husband, and he loves me. And he's not eighteen any more either.
Now, here were a couple of kids, nineteen and twenty, trying to drag me to a club for teens and early-twentysomethings. They'll think I'm a chaperone.
"Look...why not just give it a try? Just come down, check it out for--let's say, half an hour. If you still aren't cool about it, we'll just come home. Deal?"
The unexpected compliments, their insistence and now a thirty-minute escape hatch combined to break my resistance.
"All right, all right. But I'm warning you: I'll hold you to that half-hour if I want to."
They cheered a moment and then started playfully dragging me again.
This is nuts, played the mental message in an endless loop. Lisa, Melissa's mom, had halfway talked me into this; that's the only reason I'd gotten into the discussion at all. She claimed that she'd gone there from time to time and had a hell of a lot of fun. And she's even older than I am, if only by three years. I wished she had come with me, but some other obligation had scotched that. She promised that if I liked it enough to go again, she would accompany me.
At the door I could see the insanely dense array of swirling lights and hear sound suitable for building demolition. I got cold feet again, but they patiently--well, no, shall we say, enthusiastically--encouraged my continued progress until we were inside.
There were several distinct yet intertwined themes to the place and its occupants. They were, in no particular order: deafening music, sex, lascivious body movement, sex, too-tight and too-revealing clothing, sex, teasing, flirting, and also, sex. I don't think what I was seeing was even legal when I was their age.
"Earth to Sandy, earth to Sandy," Melissa said to me, breaking my reverie, her sweet, mellow voice at approximately jackhammer volume, as required to penetrate the wall of noise in which we were immersed. I didn't realize I'd become so bemused by the sights. I shook my head to clear it and we found a place to sit as David returned with soft drinks. A club catering to this age group, of course, did not serve booze.
"What do you think?" asked David, matching the volume of Melissa's earlier comment.
"It's...nice," I replied, unable to come up with anything remotely sensible.
"I hope you find it getting...nicer...after a while."
I still expected that we wouldn't even be here "after a while," but I had to admit, I didn't feel quite so out of place now. The nightmare visions of kids huddling together to guffaw at the geriatric crone in the corner which had plagued me before didn't materialize. I relaxed a little.
Right about then, a small knot of young men passed and I saw them looking at me a bit furtively, as if to check me out without alarming me. I couldn't make out their comments as they passed by; but I was almost sure the word "hot" was among them, and I know they didn't mean the ambient temperature. My own temperature seemed to rise a bit. They were certainly four fine specimens of young manhood and even a vague suspicion that they might find me, well, interesting, sent some quite pleasant chills through my body.
David stepped in as interpreter. "See? What did I tell you?"
"What did you tell me?"
"Hey, now, look at those four guys."
"I did. What about them?"