When I was in junior high, my parents starting sending me to my uncle's house for a few weeks each summer. He lived upstate and I didn't like visiting him much...that is, until he got married. I never could figure out WHY this awesome woman, who became my Aunt Alexandria, married Paul, who was a complete disaster. But she did, and it greatly improved my summer visits...She was one of those people who brought a warm, light touch to any situation. I was, then even more than now, a hideous mass of introverted nerdy awkwardness, and she always made me feel like she was truly happy to have me around, and that I was funny, and even...less than hideous. Quite a feat.
Paul was a violent drunk, and seemed to lack all ambition. He worked at Home Depot and would get off his 8 hour shift acting like all should bow before King Paul, for he hath worketh a solid shift, and did needeth his Coors Light. I scoff, in part, because since my parents owned their own nursery, an 8 hour shift was what we did on off days. During the height of flower season, we all were expected to put in at least 6 hours after school, and my parents routinely worked 12s and 14s. At the same time, Aunt Lexy was teaching EMT and emergency rescue courses, and in grad school. So, it made me insane that Uncle Paul expected her to do all of the cooking, house work, and bring him his 12 pack a night...When I was there, I would take over cooking duties, do the food buys, and try at least to not make the house any worse for my presence...Frankly, I worshipped her, and would have done anything to make her life more pleasant. I knew she liked dark chocolate, and seemed at least to be amused by the cartoons I drew in those days, so I would often wrap chocolate bar in some stupid drawing of mine and hide it in her bag. Like a clandestine love note. Which it was, in a way. I had a terrible crush on her, but didn't recognize it for that until later.
Like I say, none of us could see what a charming, good looking, dynamo like her was doing with a lump like him, but I was sure glad that she came into my young life. In addition to making the summer visits more fun, she was to introduce me to physical pleasure like I had only dimly imagined, and have never realized since...
My first taste of what was to follow occurred, improbably enough, in the parking lot of the Red Lobster. Red Lobster was the ONLY place that Paul would deign to grace with his presence, and so Aunt Lexy and I dutifully made our way there on this particular evening. It was their anniversary, and incidentally, my 18th birthday. I tried to bow out, pointing out the obvious, that "you guys aren't going to want a kid hanging around to spoil your romantic evening." Aunt Lexy gave me a bemused look, and said, "You mean, I don't want Paul hanging around to spoil a perfectly enjoyable evening with my favorite inlaw ... C'mon get dressed, we are going out, my man!"
When she talked to me that way, as though I were actually a person whose company she enjoyed rather than (as I saw myself), a burden to be endured, well... I fell in love with her all over again.
So I put on my church clothes, and was ready in, oh, maybe 10 minutes. I heard her call from their bedroom, "Claude, would you come and zip me up?" I walked into the bedroom, and my jaw dropped. Her back was to the door, and she was facing me in the mirror. The long expanse of unzipped dress, the white skin, the complete absence of bra straps crossing her smooth back or panty lines marring her perfect, full derriere; the calves thrust out by the high heels; the line running up the back of the stockings...I drank in this vision of feminine loveliness in an instant, and blurted out, " You are gorgeous!" And then wanted to crawl under the carpet with embarrassment. She gave me the warmest, most mischievous smile. "Well thank you, sailor! And you thought that your presence would spoil the romantic mood...I suspect your uncle will just grunt and order a pitcher of Coors. For himself. I could be wearing coveralls for all he cares. Your response made the effort all worthwhile. Now, zip me up, and we can go meet the ogre!"
Hands trembling, trying not to touch her back too much, inhaling her perfume ("Happy Heart" I think it was called), I accomplished the task.
We piled into her jeep, and she drove us to the restaurant, and as she pulled in her phone chirped with an incoming text. At her direction, I read: "gun b haf hr lat." I thought, "What an oaf," but just read it aloud, in a exaggerated caveman grunt.
Laughing, she said, "Well that is YOUR uncle, fella. Mr. Charming." As she spoke, she hitched around in her seat, causing her dress to ride up her thigh. She caught me staring, and said with a giggle, "Hey take a picture, it'll last longer."
Emboldened, I retorted, "Woman, don't tempt me. If I had my camera, I would be burning pixels, baby!"
She smiled and said, "You have my telephone in your hand, silly..." and reached across to show me how to activate the camera, and then leaned back in her seat.
"Go ahead, Mr. Photojournalist. Snap away. Oh, wait, boys like to see the tops of stockings, don't they? Let me adjust a little." With that, she raised her hips and slid her dress up a full four inches, until a band of smooth, creamy thigh was framed between clingy red dress and black thigh highs. I resolved then and there to never be caught without a camera again...
For the second time that evening, I found my hands shaking in her presence. I snapped away, though, not wanting to give her time to change her mind. I sent the pic to my phone, and silently handed her back her telephone.
She called up the pictures on the screen, and said, "Hey, they don't look too bad for an old broad!"
And again, without thinking, I stated bluntly: "You're the sexiest woman alive."
"Well, I don't think we can go THAT far, but listen, you have certainly earned first base this evening. C'mere. Let me give you a lesson on kissing. Or are you already accomplished, good lookin' stud like you...I don't want to presume..."
Miserably, I replied: "Of course I've never kissed a girl. Or so much as touched one...Guys like me are invisible."
"Well, Mister, that is all about to change" and cocking her right leg up to face me she leaned into me for my first kissing lesson from the lips of a goddess. Taking my right hand, she placed it behind her head, instructing me to gently run my fingers through her hair, massaging the back of her neck, at the same time demonstrating the technique with her hands on me.
She murmured, her mouth an inch away from mine: "Don't force a kiss. Always better to let the girl take the initiative. If she opens her mouth to you, then that is a signal that you can gently start probing with your tongue, just gently pull on the lips with your lips, like this..."
"Now with a girl, you should keep your hands as they are now, in her hair, or cupping her chin in your hand. But with a woman like me, who you already know, you can afford to be a little more handsy...so run your hand down my back, slowly, caressingly...that's it. Now, if you were standing in the doorway to her apartment you could run your hand down over her ass, but we can't do that in this position. What you can do is this: run your hand down my side and around my hip...here, to my thigh" and she placed my hand on that strip of bare skin, above the stocking top.
"Just gently stroke it, you can reach the side of my ass, and stroke there, too..."