Chapter 3: Dining Out

Tuesday afternoon, Cullie got a call on his phone. “Hello?”

“Cullie, it’s June.”

“Aunt June, what’s up?”

“I thought we were past the Aunt June stage.”

Cullie laughed. “Right, sorry, June. What’s up?”

“I wanted to thank you for rescuing me the other night. What are you doing for dinner?”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, or tomorrow if you have already started something.”

Cullie looked around his apartment and saw nothing keeping him home. It was a few minutes after five and he hadn’t even started thinking about dinner. He laughed and said, “I am just considering which leftovers to eat and which to throw out.”

“Put on something nice and pick me up at my place. It’s my treat.”

“Sounds better than iffy leftovers. I can be there by ... six?”

“See you at six.”

Cullie ended the call and wondered about the dinner. While dinner with Aunt June was an easy choice, he wondered about dinner with Aunt June without the ‘Aunt’. He remembered what he had seen when he was cleaning up June after she got drunk, and he wasn’t ashamed to think that she was a beautiful woman. Add in the way she had asked him to stop calling her ‘Aunt’ June, and her comment that ‘it’s just too bad you’re my best friend’s son’ made him wonder. June Howard was his mother’s age, but she was so nice. She was short, but very well put together. Those nice tits and that trim triangle of pubic hair - after she dropped him off, Cullie had gone upstairs and jerked off at the thought of her naked.

Cullie called down to Alison on the intercom they had. “Mom, I’m going out tonight. Don’t figure on dinner for me.”

“Oh? Going out?”

“I’m meeting a friend.”

“Okay. Have fun.”

Cullie clicked off the intercom and wondered why he had said he was meeting a friend. Why hadn’t he said he was meeting Aunt June? Sure, she was a friend, but now she wanted him to drop the ‘Aunt’? What was happening? He took a quick shower and then dressed in slacks and a dress shirt. On the way out the door, he stopped and pulled on a sport coat. He shook his head as he tried to understand his feelings.

His feelings didn’t become any clearer when he got to June’s townhouse. When she buzzed him in, he heard her call, “Out in a moment!” He waited for her to come down to the living room and was pleasantly surprised when she did. Instead of her usual slacks and a top, she was wearing a very pretty sundress. It was black with white polka dots, halter-topped, knee-length, and low cut. She was also wearing black heels, and a quick glance at her hips made him wonder about anything else.

“Wow! Very nice!” Cullie exclaimed.

June smiled and twirled around. “Really? You like it?”

“Absolutely!”

“Thank you, darling. I haven’t been able to dress up and go out in so long! I decided to go for broke tonight. I was just hoping you would dress nicely yourself. Thank you.”

“This okay?”

“Perfect.”

Cullie smiled and said, “Nobody is going to look at me anyway.”

June grinned broadly at that. “I just bet you have practiced that line with some younger girls, and it probably worked quite well with them.” Cullie refused to answer, though his grin was answer enough. “Come on. Let me grab my purse. I’ll drive.”

Fifteen minutes later June pulled into the parking lot of the Desmond, a nicely upscale hotel off Albany-Shaker Road. Cullie was curious about what was up. They had driven up the Northway and skipped past Wolf Road, where any number of restaurants could be found. Still, he decided to keep his mouth shut. June was in charge for the evening.

June parked and got out of the car, grabbing her purse from where she had placed it on the floor behind her feet. “Let’s go, Cullie.” She waited until he had left the car and then took his hand. “I had lunch over here last week, a get-together with some of the registrar’s office people.”

“Sure thing,” he said. Strange, though, since he didn’t remember his mother saying anything about a lunch at the Desmond, one of the nicer hotels near the Albany airport.

June led Cullie into the restaurant, Mr. D’s, still holding his hand. “When we were here, we had our lunch in the Atrium. They set tables and chairs up and cater them near the koi pond.”

“Sounds very fancy.”

“So, how are you feeling? Any lingering aftereffects from Friday night?” she asked.

Cullie gave her a wry look. “I should be asking you that.”

June blushed. “After I drove you home Saturday, I went home and went back to bed. I slept the day away, right through Sunday. I was okay by Monday when I went to work.”

He snorted and smiled. “That bad?”

“It’s not the first hangover I’ve ever had, but it’s been a long time since my last. Don’t be so superior. You’ll have a bad one someday, too.”

“Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I didn’t puke on it, but I got it,” Cullie replied.

“Your time will come. In the meantime, I don’t think I am having anything stronger than iced tea for a while.”

Cullie laughed. He laughed even louder when their waitress asked if she could get them something before ordering. “Two iced teas.”

“Uh, I need to see some identification, please.”

June laughed at them both. “Regular iced teas, not Long Island iced teas. You know, water, sugar, tea leaves.”

“Sorry. I’ll get those and give you a few minutes with the menus.” The waitress left them their menus and scooted away.

He looked at the menu. “Everything looks good. I don’t normally cook like this for myself.”

“You’re a nineteen-year-old college kid. You normally eat pizza and beer!”

“I eat pizza. I drink beer,” he laughed.

“Don’t try and be smart.” She tapped his menu. “Remember, my treat. Go for it!”

The pair studied their menus for a few minutes, until the waitress returned with their iced teas. “Ready to order, or do you need a few minutes more?”

Cullie looked over at June. “I’m ready.” June nodded and Cullie continued, “Uh, I’ll have the shrimp appetizer...”

“The pancetta wrapped shrimp?”

“Yes, and the clam chowder and the New York strip steak, medium rare,” he finished.

June’s eyes lit up. “Ooohh, that sounds good. Do you like clams?” she asked Cullie. When he nodded, she said, “Make mine with the clams.” She turned back to Cullie. “I’ll share my clams with you, and you can give me a shrimp or two.”

“Works!” He handed his menu to the waitress, who collected June’s as well. She took off and left. He turned back to June. “Have I said how nice you look? This is a lot more than whatever payback would be for the other night.”

“Thank you. Dinner is the payback. As for dressing up, well, you heard us all on Friday. It seems like forever since we’ve been able to go out.”

Cullie countered, “Bars and restaurants and movies and all have been open for a few months now. People are going out again.”

“Some. Couples are going out again. None of us are couples. It’s still difficult to find male companionship when you have to go out wearing masks and socially distancing, especially when half the population is working from home! Major pain in the ass!” she told him.

“So, you get to go out and look like you are having dinner with your boy toy?” June blushed, and Cullie said, “I’ve never been a boy toy before. Sounds interesting! What kind of benefits do boy toys qualify for?”

“I thought being a boy toy was the benefit!”

“What? Wild and crazy sex with MILFs? Okay, I can go along with that. Maybe I can hang a shingle out - Satisfaction Guaranteed, Reasonable Rates! Think I have what it takes to be a gigolo?”

“Hard to say, Cullie. I’d need to see your qualifications, all of them, before I could pass judgment.”

Cullie laughed at that. “Sorry, June. You don’t qualify as a MILF. You’re not a mom.” Then he noticed June’s distressed look. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.”

June said, “No, it’s the last bit, about not being a mother. We tried, but I can’t have kids. It’s part of why we broke up.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No reason you should have. He started catting around with younger women, ‘complete women’ he used to say. Knocked one up a couple of years ago. That was the final straw for me. Meanwhile I was trying to find something myself. I wasn’t a saint, either.” She reached out and took his hand. “It’s okay, Cullie. Don’t worry about me. Think of all the money I’ve been able to save on contraceptives.”

Cullie rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry I brought this up.”

She squeezed his hand again. “Don’t sweat it. I came to terms with it a long time ago.”

He smiled. “So, tell me, how do I stack up against the other boy toys?”

June coughed as she tried to swallow her tea. “Cullie! Just how many boy toys do you think I’ve had?” Cullie just gave her an innocent and curious look and she began to laugh. “There haven’t been that many, so I can’t give you statistics. None have been teenagers, that’s for sure!”

“Think of all you’ve been missing out on!”

“I ought to give you a shot, just for that! Wouldn’t you be surprised?”

The sexual banter and innuendo continued through dinner, though they skipped dessert. Both wondered just what it would be like. By the time their entrees arrived, Cullie had stopped thinking of June Howard as his ‘aunt’ and started thinking of her as an intriguing possibility; she was a damn fine-looking woman, better looking than some of the girls he had taken back to his apartment. Meanwhile, June had begun considering Cullie Doyle as a potential lover and not just as the young man she had known since he was a baby. He certainly wasn’t a baby any longer.

She excused herself after turning down the desserts. “Give me a few minutes.” She headed towards the restrooms, and Cullie looked around the restaurant and waited patiently. It was closer to ten minutes before she returned, and the waitress had brought their check.

“My turn,” he announced, and headed for the restrooms. When he came back, June was signing the credit card slip. “I was wondering about that,” he said. “When you were gone so long earlier, I thought I might have to cover the tab.”

She smiled. “I was just taking care of a few things.” She set the slip in its folder and pocketed her card.

“Oh?”

“I’ve been thinking about a couple of things and wondering what you might think.”

“Mmmm?”

June blushed and said, “Earlier, when we were talking about boy toys.” She reached into her purse to pull out a credit card and slid it across the table to him. It took Cullie a couple of seconds to realize it wasn’t a credit card, but an electronic room key.

He looked up at her in confusion. “Aunt ... I mean, June? I wasn’t expecting this.”

“I wasn’t either, Cullie, but you got me to thinking. Neither of us are children, Cullie, and we are both turned on by the thought. Why not?” she said to him.

“Well, when you put it that way...” Then he grinned. “If Mom ever learns, we are both dead!”

June laughed. “Well, I certainly wasn’t planning on sending her a text message about it!”

“What was the other thing you were thinking of?”