Chapter 5

I had no idea what would happen, of course. It had been too long since I'd been involved in romantic intricacies with a woman. I was assailed by doubts again and thought Vicky might be laughing as she pointed an ethereal finger at the unfaithful schmuck and how he had fucked things up because he strayed from the vows he'd made to her a decade before, when she was still alive. Later, when I stubbornly insisted my dead wife would have supported a proper courtship, I envisioned her shaking her head sadly at my ineptitude.

I was thinking about that when Lynne showed up. She actually knocked on the back door, something she hadn't done in years. We generally just walked into each other's houses and announced our presence by voice.

I could see who it was through the thin lace curtain that had been there when I bought the place, and which I had never removed or replaced. If it wasn't broken, I didn't fix it. I knew she could see me too, which was why I actually opened the door. I don't know what I expected. Maybe an angry mother? But then perhaps, by some miracle, she didn't know what had happened to her little girl.

It was pretty obvious she knew, but the look on her face wasn't what I would have expected from her. It was almost quizzical, like she wasn't sure what to think. Of course that was impossible. Parents always know what to think about something like that.

"Can I come in?" she asked, not quite formally.

I realized I had opened the door and then just stood there like a bump on a log.

"Of course," I said. If you practice being polite, it becomes a habit.

I stepped back while she went past me and apparently decided to just sit down at the table, instead of wait for me to offer her a chair or whatever.

"Are you hungry?" I asked. I had no idea where that came from, and felt incredibly stupid. Then my stomach growled and I realized there was no limit to how stupid I could feel.

"Not right now," she said, still looking puzzled. "Are you all right?"

She could have asked me any question in the book and it would have been less bizarre than that one. The result was that I actually answered her question truthfully.

"I don't actually know."

She stared at me and then snorted. It came from nowhere. One second she was just sitting and staring, and the next she was blowing snot from her nose. Still in automatic polite mode, but feeling like I had suddenly entered somebody's dream, I pushed the napkin holder towards her with one hand.

She blushed bright red and grabbed a napkin. she blew her nose and then wiped up the spots, either real or imaginary, on her other hand. I could see her tensing to get up and flee and this dream I was in allowed me to react in a way that, had nothing happened between Jill and me, I might have done in the first place.

"Don't worry about it. Happens to me all the time," I said, with entirely too much disinterest in my voice.

She snorted again, but this time she got the napkin to her nose in time. It was already blown clean anyway. She took another napkin and continued cleaning things up.

"What's so weird," she said, obviously trying to act normally, "is that I feel exactly the same way."

"You do that all the time too?" I asked automatically.

She didn't snort this time, because somehow she knew I was serious, instead of trying to be funny.

"No, I don't know if I'm all right either."

There was a silence that lengthened until I couldn't stand it.

"It just happened!" I blurted. "I didn't plan it!"

"Oh, I know that," she said almost calmly. "That's part of what makes this so hard to understand."

"What?" My mind twisted around, trying to understand how she couldn't understand what anybody who knew anything about dirty old men and horny young women could easily understand.

When women are upset about something they like to talk about it. Lynne was no different.

"She came bouncing in the door, mad as a wet hen and it was obvious something had happened, so I asked her. I said "What in the world happened to you? And she said 'I just seduced Bob and he was a turd about it!' Just like that! And then she started going on about how wonderful it was, and how easy it had been and how excited you got and how good that made her feel, until you said you didn't love her and that she was never going to speak to you again in her whole life."

"Oh shit," I moaned. The fool girl had told her mother everything!

"That's what I don't understand. I know you," she said patiently. "I know you'd never take advantage of her." Her head tilted then as she continued thinking. "Not intentionally anyway."

"I wouldn't!" I said hastily. "I don't understand what happened either." That was a lie, but if I could somehow salvage things with my neighbor, I was willing to lie to do it.

She sat back, and tight muscles relaxed somewhat. "I just didn't know she had it in her."

Now you have to understand here that a man, particularly a dirty old one like me who had just blown ten years of pent up sperm into a sweet young thing, just can't possibly hear "had it in her" without thinking ... well ... like a dirty old man.

I snorted, just like she had, and lurched for the napkin holder, but my deposit joined Lynne's on the table before I could get a napkin. So I went through the same cleanup routine she had. I hoped she felt better, because I felt horrible.

"What?" she asked, looking confused. She could tell I was trying not to laugh, which was true. I was trying desperately not to laugh. I knew this wasn't funny, but something like that has the same effect as the third grade joke: "What do you do if you get swallowed by an elephant?" [dramatic pause, while adult thinks and confesses he doesn't know] "You run around and around and around until you're all pooped out!" There is then a chorus of giggles from the third grader and, if you're in just the right mood, a fit of almost uncontrollable chuckles from you too.

"Sorry," I said, forcing my face to get what I hoped was a serious look on it. "As odd as it sounds, I think I'm in shock, a little bit." That sounded good. Didn't it? At least it hinted at me having thoughts about things that might be considered responsible.

"Me too!" she said, her voice high. "I'm shocked she could do that to you!"

Do that to me? What the heck was she talking about? She was waiting for a response. It was obvious she wanted me to help her understand how her daughter could do whatever it was she was talking about to me. The dream feeling strengthened.

"Like I said, it just happened."

"But she PLANNED it!" Lynne burst out.

"She did?" I knew she had planned to tease me, but that's all.

"She BRAGGED about it! Like some high school jock, putting another notch in his belt!" She blinked. "I mean in his pistol." She looked impatient. "ON his pistol!"

Now I blinked a few times. "Bragged?"

"She was PROUD she seduced you!" Lynne almost exploded. "She was laughing and crying at the same time. I'm telling you, Bob, she was a completely different daughter than I've ever had in the past. I couldn't BELIEVE it!"

"Oh," I said helplessly. Then the automatic male response kicked in ... the one we use to try to mollify a woman, or keep her mollified. "I'm sorry," I added.

She darted a sharp look at me. "I should be mad at you, but according to Jill, you didn't have a chance. The way she told it, you were just a brainless penis, waiting to be used!"

"Now hang on there a second," I said, wounded.

She relaxed again. "I'm sorry, Bob. I know you're not brainless."

That kind of left me with the impression that, while I wasn't brainless, I WAS, in her opinion, a penis waiting to be used.

"And I've known for a long time that she was infatuated with you," she went on. "We've even talked about you before when she wanted to know why it felt so good when you looked at her."

"Um ... sorry about that too," I said.

She snorted again, but not so hard. "You're a man, Bob. Men look. It made me feel good too, and I used that to help her understand that she needed to learn the difference between what a man tells her with his mouth, and what his eyes tell her. I probably should have said something to you about it, but I thought it was so obvious that you already knew. This is all my fault." She sounded completely serious and completely miserable.

That's when I decided this really WAS all just a dream, and that none of this had happened at all. Nowhere but in a dream could a mother arrive at the conclusion that the defloration of her daughter could be her mother's fault.

"But she just never showed any real sexual interest in boys!" moaned Lynne. "She's never asked to go on a date. Not one time! She has friends who are boys, but has never had a boyfriend. I was beginning to think she was gay, Bob!"

That was my first clue as to why Lynne might have mixed feelings about her little girl getting well and truly fucked ... by a man, at least. Assuming she didn't want her little girl to be turned on by other girls, then confirmation that said little girl liked boys enough to seduce one might be cause for celebration, or at least relief. At the same time, I was no boy, and guys like me are supposed to do the seducing, not BE seduced.

"She's not gay," I said needlessly. Then I followed that up with a very appropriate "I'm sorry."

She looked at me sharply again. "Are you?" I could tell she really meant that.

"Yes!" I said urgently. "I wish it had never happened. Please believe me."

If I expected to see some kind of relief, or forgiveness, or at least SOMETHING positive, I was disappointed. Instead she looked like she'd lost her last friend.

"What are we going to DO, Bob?" She moaned.

"Maybe we don't have to do anything," I suggested carefully. "Didn't you say she was mad at me and wasn't going to talk to me again?"

Lynne looked at me like I had grown a third eye. "Don't be an idiot, Bob. I'll admit that I didn't see it coming that she would try to seduce you. But I still know her, Bob. She may have left here mad because you said you didn't love her, but she won't believe that in the morning. She thinks she loves you!"

I contemplated that little bombshell for a few seconds. Part of me wasn't all that disappointed that a fresh young thing like Jill could think she was in love with me.

"And if you don't reciprocate," said a very anguished Lynne, "which obviously you can't pull off successfully because you don't love her, then she's going to get hurt, Bob!"

This very odd concept - reciprocation in the sense that Lynne was talking about - bounced around in my head like a ball of Flubber on steroids.

"Wait!" I blurted. "You mean you WANT me to ... to keep ... I mean to do it again? No! That's not what I meant. You don't want me to do that again, right?"

"Of course not!" she snapped. "What kind of sick, twisted woman do you think I am?

My brain rebelled at that. I wasn't sick or twisted! True I'd nailed a girl young enough to be my daughter, but she'd been willing - EAGER if what her mother said was true! And she was eighteen anyway! I'm sure all this showed on my face, but Lynne didn't notice.

"But I also don't want her to think she's being tossed aside like some little sex toy by the man she thinks she's in love with!" Tears welled up in her eyes. "I don't want her to get hurt, Bob!"

"I'm not going to hurt her," I said. I know it was what I was expected to say, but it caught her attention somehow. Maybe that's because I really meant that. I didn't want to EVER hurt Jill, or her mother either. "I'm not," I insisted.

"Really?" There was hope in Lynne's voice.

"Of course not. I couldn't hurt her."

"Well what are you going to do?" asked the hopeful mother.

"Well that's what she's so mad about. I didn't tell her I didn't love her. I told her she should have given her virginity to someone who loved her, and that it was wrong ... what we did, I mean ... and that we can't do it again."

"Is THAT what all that crying was about?" Lynne sounded completely surprised.

"Yes. I was very insistent that we couldn't do it again."

"Well no wonder!" sighed Lynne. "She gave you her heart and you threw it back at her!"

"That's not what I was trying to do!" I moaned. "I just wanted her to understand that it was all wrong, and shouldn't have happened."

"OK, I get it," Said Lynne. "In your inept way, you tried to do the right thing, after you'd done the wrong thing. And she took it the wrong way. But that's not going to make any difference once she has some time to think about it. She might torture you a little, but she's going to be back for more. Trust me, Bob."

"I know. She tried to argue with me. But I'm serious about it. It won't happen again. I promise! You don't have to worry about that."

If I'd have stopped there, who knows? Things might have worked out just like I planned. But I didn't stop there. I "reassured" Lynne some more.