In 1995 I was 43 years old and feeling just a twinge of mid-life crisis. Just a twinge though, as I had never really matured enough for it to hit me like I was seeing in most of my peers. Though I had been married a couple of times, I never had any kids to slow me down or make me aware of the passage of time. I spent my whole life as a beach lifeguard in an endless Summer. At my age I was now in a supervisory role and had a pretty sweet gig. I was never going to get rich, but it was a good fit for a surf bum. I for sure appeared to be in better shape than most all of my friends that took more conventional life paths. Life was good.

My parents were older than most people my age. I was the last pop out of the box, the product of a busted rubber, and they were both in their early 80’s. They were having a hard time taking care of themselves at the old homestead and I decided to hire them some help around the house, a little cleaning, cooking, etc. I lucked out as there was a young woman who lived just up the road that needed some part time work, plus she lived close enough to keep an eye out for my folks even when she wasn’t working there. I lived in another town, and it made me sleep easier to know a watchful eye was close by.

Shelly was 22 and a Mormon, complete with the traditional shapeless sack dresses they wore and long naturally wavy blonde hair straight out of a 60’s Breck Girl shampoo ad. Her face was beatifically angelic, even if I could not quite see the body holding that face up, it looked as if it might be nice. Somehow that made her even sexier, kind of a forbidden fruit thing going on. My mom told me she had gotten a divorce recently, an extra big deal when you are a Mormon. She didn’t know the details, but my mom had met her husband a few times and said he seemed very nice. Of course, if a Mormon isn’t nice, who will be? Evidently, they had just gotten back from some missionary work like they all do and immediately broke up. My mom said Shelly was very upset and depressed by this turn of events. She had just moved in with her folks up the road from us until she could get on her feet again.

Shelly and I hit it off right off the bat. I was up at my folks’ doing repairs on their much maintenance deferred dwelling, trying to patch it together to last as long as my parents would be in the home. I was working on the roof with my shirt off when I came down for a glass of water and met Shelly in the kitchen. I could sense her checking me out in a sexual way, although very shyly. I got used to feeling that vibe from years on a lifeguard tower. She was hungry.

Me being agnostic, Shelly and I had many good talks about religion and life until my father finally passed, and my mother had to be placed in a geriatric facility because of dementia. I moved into the old homestead for a week to clean it up to sell. I missed talking with Shelly and had developed a strong sexual attraction to her to boot. I would still see her drive by the house, and she even stopped by a few times to say hi. There was definitely a connection between us I could not quite put my finger on. Shelly had a vibe of sexual frustration about her that I found highly erotic. She was not the usual party girl ‘Beach Betty’ that I was used to.

One day towards the end of this huge project of getting the house ready to sell, Shelly called me on the phone. It seems her parents were out of town for some Morman retreat deal and she asked if I would like to come over to enjoy a home cooked dinner at her house before I took off for good. She even mentioned how she had missed our conversing. I eagerly said yes, and we set it up for the next Saturday. I felt like a teenager on a first date somehow. I was just happy that me being 21 years older than her didn’t seem to creep her out. My boyish immaturity was paying off. All kinds of wild fantasies were going through my head.

Saturday came around and when Shelly answered the door she wasn’t wearing a baby doll, damn it, so my first sexual fantasy was shot down! She was still in her Mormon dress. She had cooked up a fine meal and afterward we set on her couch and caught up. We truly had missed talking with each other. Turns out her husband had been a “homosexual”, and she had caught him in bed with another Mormon man. Shelly told me I was the only one she had told that too. She also told me she felt inadequate as a wife and maybe she could have “cured’ him. I explained to her that being gay was not something you “cured”, and she was a very attractive young lady. I also told her how honored I was for her to confide in my like that and how I felt a very deep connection between us too. Something changed instantly between us right then.

Shelly looked at me straight in my eyes and asked, “Do you think I am sexually attractive? I don’t really know if I am or not. Sex with my husband was not very good for obvious reasons I suppose. I just can’t get the idea out of my head that I may have turned him into a homosexual.”