by James L. Sutter
(05/02/07)

The boy was back.

Fay stalked him from the sidelines of the party, fiddling with the pretzel bowl as she watched the way he unconsciously dried his bathroom-wet hands on the back of his T-shirt. She thought about offering him a napkin or something, but no -- too forward. She'd already done that twice tonight. Didn't want him to think she was his mother or something.

God, mother! Just the word made her feel old. Gulping the last of her wine, she set the glass back down hard on the table and set off across the room.

Coming to Gail's birthday party by herself had been a major achievement for Fay. After years of slow descent into monotony and, finally, utter disgust, she had managed to leave David behind in San Francisco with the kids while she went north for the weekend. Stepping onto the plane, she could feel the chains of her marriage slowly retracting with the accordion-like boarding ramp. The plane had taken off and picked up speed, and so had she.

Too much speed, in fact -- she checked her pace, made sure it remained casual. While she knew Gail didn't mind -- in fact, she probably approved -- it wouldn't do to have the rest of the party catch on to what a complete and utter horndog she'd become.

But god, he was cute. Twenty years old and straight out of college, messy black hair and too-tight band T-shirt that showed off exactly how skinny he was. "Boy," Gail had exclaimed, "you weigh about two ounces less than I did when I was born!" Everyone had laughed, including the kid, but Fay had noticed more than one pair of eyes watching as he bent to refill his glass.

Reflexively, Fay's hands went to her own ass, enjoying the feel of the material against her cheeks as she smoothed nonexistent wrinkles out of her skirt. Upon arriving in Seattle, her first action had been to buy herself a leopard-print thong, just like Sarah Jessica Parker in "Sex and the City." She was wearing it now, and be damned if it didn't make her feel just as sexy as she thought it would. In truth, she had earned the right to feel that way. At thirty-seven, having given birth to two not-so-tiny children, Fay still had the legs that had made her college career so entertaining. Breasts had never been her strong point but, hey, at least she had something, and tonight's blouse was plenty low enough to make that obvious. Add in naturally high cheekbones, a thick mane of curly, dirty blond hair -- "goddess hair," Gail called it -- and Fay was the sort of late-thirties mother-of-two you only found on infomercials and morning talk shows.

So why didn't she feel this attractive all the time? While it would be easy enough to blame it all on David (and God knows, she'd done that a few times), the answer was really a combination of things -- the wear and tear of a ho-hum career, PTA meetings, spilled oatmeal, and, yes, David's gradual transformation from sweet, handsome intellectual into the jaded, paunchy architect who only stopped complaining about the firm long enough to mount her halfheartedly from behind, asleep before he even finished coming. In any case, everyone involved realized it was time for a change.

And here was that opportunity, perched on a couch arm and munching idly on hors d'oeuvres. Young, all wit and smiles in the few passing conversations they'd had so far this evening -- the boy would do just fine.

Sliding open the screen door and stepping out onto the rain-slick porch, Fay called his name and waved him over. The kid glanced around quickly to see if anyone else was responding to the summons, then made his way over. She closed the door behind him and took his arm, guiding him out past the edge of the patio and onto the damp grass overlooking the bay.

For a moment they stood there, the boy on her elbow stiff and awkward, and took in the view. Out to sea, a channel marker bobbed slowly in time with its flashing light, while on the shore the waves rolled in with a sigh, rising and falling on a beach thick with driftwood. Around them the sky was dark, stars peeking from between the ever-present clouds, and lit only by the explosion of yellow light from the cabin behind them. Fay drew a breath and broke the silence without looking at him.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she asked. "We don't get anything like this down in Marin -- the lights drown out all but the brightest stars."

The boy agreed -- Seattle had the same problem in the city proper, but once you got past the suburbs the sky burned until it seemed impossible that anything as small as mankind could hold the legion of stars at bay.

"And you know, it's funny," she continued, "from inside, you can't see any of it. The light reflecting off the glass only shows you your own reflection. But out here you can see everything -- the people inside, as well as the bigger picture. There's probably a metaphor in that somewhere, don't you think?"

The boy murmured something pleasant and noncommittal. Fay struggled briefly for something to say, anything that might draw him out and take some of the pressure off of her, then gave up in disgust. So much for deep, metaphysical connection.

Well, fuck it. There were stars. There was wine. There was freedom. That would have to be good enough. She struck.

"So I hear you're pretty kinky," she ventured.

The boy, caught off his guard, sputtered and paused, eyes wide.

"I mean," Fay continued, "college students these days...I read about what kind of stuff is considered standard practice, and I'm just amazed. Here I am, thirty-seven, not that much older than you, and I'm shocked..." Shit, that sounded bad. "Not that I'm opposed, you understand, just that those sorts of things would never have been suggested back when I was in school...and that really says something, doesn't it?"

The boy finally cracked a lopsided smile and began speaking in earnest, launching into a soliloquy on shifting gender roles, the queering of American pop culture, and the latest generation's realization that there was something to that old "if it feels good, do it" ethic after all. Fay smiled and nodded, despite the fact that she'd heard it all before -- in addition to being Fay's best friend and the godparent of her children, Gail was a hardcore leather dyke. "Bi is the new gay," was one of Gail's pet phrases.

Emboldened by the warm flush of the wine, Fay surprised herself by interrupting the lecture to lean closer and say, "I bet you like one in the ass."

It appeared that the boy wasn't too suave too blush. He nodded and attempted to press onward, but Fay squeezed his arm in triumph.

"I knew it!" she laughed. "As soon as I saw you walk into the room, I walked over and told Gail 'I bet he likes one in his ass.'"

He opened his mouth to protest, but Fay steamrolled over him.

"All night, I've had this idea that we would come out here together. I know, I'm thirty-seven -- God, I keep saying that, don't I? -- but sometimes I meet somebody like you and things just go zing, ya know? You're really cute." That blush was back. She decided it looked good on him.

"Anyway, I had this fantasy that we'd come out here tonight and fuck in the grass, right here, where we can watch all of them inside, but they can't see us." There. She'd finally said it. "What do you say?"

His mouth was open, but no sound came out. After a long moment, he finally summoned the nerve to speak -- questions about her husband, her children.

God, how clichéd. Fay cut him off with the neat insertion of her tongue between his teeth. She could feel parts of him tense and resist for a moment, but then he was melting and leading her down behind a grassy hillock overlooking the beach.

He was better than she had expected. Before her shirt was halfway off his mouth had found her nipples, dark circles in the half-light. She rubbed the khaki of his cargo shorts and felt him stiffen in silent pulses, but as she fumbled with his belt he gently removed her hands and held them behind her back as he laid her on the grass and lifted her skirt.

Then he was under, screened from view like a gynecologist, sliding the damp thong out of her crack and down her legs, parting her folds and lapping slowly at her unsheathed clitoris. Moisture dribbled across her perineum and onto the sandy soil. Fay squealed as his furtive tongue prodded her asshole. It had been years before David had been bold enough to go where no man had before. She remembered how he had grinned and kissed her, the dirty-sweet scent still on his lips.

Now she could feel the boy's fingers, tentative, stroking her labia with soft insistence. She spread wider and lifted her knees, contracting everything she had to draw him in. One. Two. Three. Over half his hand inside her, and still she thought she could take more. Ever since Peter's birth, she'd felt loose and flappy. Though the pain had been more than worth it, sometimes in the shower she still self-consciously touched the faint scar below her vagina where they'd sewn her back together.

Air in the spaces between his fingers made squishing noises. The onion-and-sunflower smell of her pussy permeated the night.

Pushing the boy's head away, Fay lifted herself up and focused on his belt with renewed vigor. This time he didn't resist. Yanking pants and boxers down across his narrow hips in one stroke, like a parent undressing a child, Fay took the head of his half-mast member into her mouth for a cursory suck. The faint mussel taste of unwashed boy. Uncircumcised. She stuck her tongue into the sheath of skin at the tip and tickled until the head emerged. Then she leaned back and pulled him up, on, and in.

No condom -- fuck it. Menopause was just around the corner anyway. The boy was remarkably quiet. Eyes closed, she stroked his back and concentrated on the way it felt to have him inside her, throbbing, stroking, clutching at her still-firm thighs with shaky fingers. She could feel him get harder, his ass contracting, and that in and of itself was enough to start the slow chug of her own steam-engine orgasm. Purring softly, she opened her eyes.

The boy was watching her. Hips pounding, breath ragged and bestial, he still managed to look guilty.

"Fuck!"

Fay shoved him up and off, rolling to one side. What right did he have to look guilty? What right? It was her goddamn decision, and nobody had the authority to make her feel bad about it. Right? She stood up and adjusted her skirt, grabbing for her blouse.

The boy was still kneeling on the grass, naked from the waist down, his already-withering penis squirting the sad half-spurts of interrupted climax. He looked up at her. Hurt and confusion.

Once again, the mother in Fay reared its head. "Here," she said, handing him his shorts. "I'm sorry."

Then she turned and strode back across the lawn to make a phone call.

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