Most of the bad memories had to do with how badly we’d danced around the elephant in the room, especially in those days. I called it enjoying the moment; she called it refusing to face reality. I could always make my head, if not my heart, understand the fact that she was slowly pushing me away for my own good. I saw her guiding me toward a life with someone to grow old with, instead of someone who’s “starting a new life” years were behind her. She had this idea that I needed someone I could have two-point-five kids with, something Anna couldn’t give me, she’d said, even if she wanted to. It wasn’t until after I’d left town that I realized how little I’d argued that particular point with her.
The bad memories got more vivid as I sat alone in the Gilman’s dining room. My gut remembered the ever-increasing frustration I felt over ever-decreasing contact. I wanted to do what I should have done eleven months ago. I told myself, while I drained another of Innsmouth’s finest local brews, that I’d march over to her house to tell her I was done with her, once and for all. If she thought to coax me out this way only to blow me off, then she’d have another thing coming. I settled for calling her, again, and promised myself that in 15 more minutes I’d be gone.
Two hours and three unreturned voicemails later, I’d had enough.
The Waite-Saothwick family home was an ornate Victorian, nearly a manor house, a throwback to Innsmouth’s well-heeled past that belonged off of Town Square or with the old-money houses of Washington Street. From two blocks away, I could see Anna standing on the widow’s walk at the top of the house. It was a breezy, slightly chilly evening. I was fine in jeans and a button down with the sleeves rolled up, but I didn’t expect to see her in a short, sleeveless nightgown. I paused, wondering if I should knock or check the back door to see if it was unlocked, like it always used to be.
I paced a bit as I watched her, trying to work up the nerve to get to her door. When she wrapped her arms around herself, probably feeling the chill, I finally admitted to myself that what I wanted the most was to be standing behind her and holding her.
I fumbled for the cell in my pocket. In the space between two dial tones, I let my gaze wander. When I looked up again, Anna suddenly wasn’t on the widow’s walk. She was on the balcony outside her bedroom bay window door, and making her way inside. I had no idea how she could have gotten there so quickly. If it weren’t for all the complaints about joints I’d remembered hearing, I would have thought she jumped down the staircase connecting the two platforms.
Anna answered her phone. “Hello, Elliot.”
“Hey,” I said, with hopefully enough enthusiasm to hide how pissed I was at being put out for the past several hours.
Her front porch light switched on.
“Come on over,” she said. Her front door opened and there she was, covered in a silk robe that looked slightly too long for her. I wondered if she’d gotten shorter or if she was stooped over slightly. But when I walked up her steps and stood face to face, my lips were right about at the level of her forehead, right where they were supposed to be.
Arms crossed with her phone still in hand, staring at my chest with those unblinking blue eyes, Anna smiled. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said, trying to make eye contact.
She took a quick breath, and finally looked up at me. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ve just been… I don’t know. I just couldn’t….” She brushed her mop of pale blond hair away from her face, and spread her arms to offer me a hug.
“Forget it,” I said, taking her into my arms.
After a moment, she melted into me.
“Why did you have to come back?” she said.
“Because you let me.”
“No, why really?”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m indulging my cougar fetish. Happy?”
She giggled, and that broke some of the tension. “You went straight for the c-word,” she said. “Nice.”
“It was that, or, ‘I’m looking for another mom.’”
Anna hugged me tighter. “You jerk.” And then she whispered, “I’m so, so sorry.”
Her lips looked as soft and as warm as I’d remembered. I took a chance kissing her. I was happy to find, that from the way her long tongue searched for mine, I hadn’t gotten her signals wrong after all.
I brushed her hair away, exposing her neck and pressed my lips softly against her throat. “I sure wouldn’t do this with my mother,” I whispered. I parted my lips and gently scraped her skin with my teeth.
She let my lips linger at her neck. I lightly drew swirls up along her jaw, up to that spot just under her ear. Then, she gently gripped my neck and guided my head downward. I kissed along her collar bone, and down her cleavage as far as her robe would allow.
“I’ll give you ‘mother’,” she whispered back, walking me upstairs by the hand.
Anna insisted on turning the lights off before taking off her robe. But my eyes quickly adjusted, thanks to the glow of the waxing moon coming in through her bedroom’s bay window. She pulled off my glasses and stripped me down to my boxers. We slid onto the cloud-like down comforter on her bed.
Everything was blissfully familiar: the way we laid side-by-side, the way we tasted each other’s skin. The way her mouth licked and sucked from the base of my throat down to my nipples. That moment when I’m so hard, that even boxers feel too confining and I just want them off.
I pushed them down as Anna peeled off her pink cotton panties. She licked her fingers, and teased herself, draping a leg over mine and grinding herself into my thigh.
I moistened the palm of my own hand and teased the head of my cock. Anna kissed my neck again, moaning along with me. I gripped myself and stroked, slowly, whispering her name. This was how we made love more often than not, holding each other as we got ourselves off. I was honest with all my heart when I whispered, “I missed this.”
Sometimes, if she had the right product handy, she would straddle me and take me inside her for as long as she could. I didn’t see any bottles or tubes about, and I didn’t care. But I was surprised when she pushed herself on top of me and gently rubbed herself along my length.
“Baby, wait,” I said. “Are you sure–?”
“I missed this, too,” she said. She reached for my cock and held the tip against her. I tried to keep still, to let her take her time. I moaned loudly when she pushed herself down in one slow, wet, warm stroke all the way down to my hilt.
With a limberness that I knew she hadn’t been capable of since she was my age, she sat up and peeled off her negligee as she ground her hips into me. All of the usual self-consciousness about what she always called her “sags and saddlebags” was gone. Maybe all the time I’d spent telling her how beautiful she is to me had finally paid off.
Only my disbelief kept me from coming right then.
Before I could stop myself, I slid my hands up her thighs and held her hips. Mine gained a mind of their own, and their only thought was to push myself as deeply inside her as I could. And to do it again, and again, and again.
I tried to slow myself down. I had to, if I wanted this to last. But Anna leaned forward, posting herself on her elbows on either side of my head, and stroked my hair. “Don’t,” she whispered. Her hips picked up my slack. Her eyes, even wider now, stared straight into mine, as if they were penetrating me as deeply as I was her.