"I wasn't pregnant or anything, if that's what your thinking." she went
on. "It's just that I had a very rough life up to that point. Both my
parents died before I was even in my teens and I spent a good number of
years being passed from relative to relative. I had a really poor self
image back then as you might imagine. So when an older man like Jim took
an interest in me, I was totally overwhelmed. He was good looking,
successful and could have almost any woman he wanted. It wasn't because I
was so young either. If he wanted it, I would've just been his lover, he
didn't have to marry me. In fact, you might find this hard to believe, but
I was still a virgin going to our marriage bed."
If A.C. was ever certain about anything during the years he spent in
this house as an almost adopted son, it was that Mary and Jim Austin had
been very deeply in love with each other right up to the day he died.
"You must miss him very much." was all he could think to say.
"Yes, I do." she answered. "But I know that Jim would be the first one
to say that life goes on and in fact during his last months he made me
promise that I'd find someone new to love. He didn't want me wearing
widow's weeds for the rest of my life."
"I'm sure there are lots of men you'd want to take you out." A.C.
commented.
"Oh there have been lots of offers." Mary quickly replied. "But I've
turned them all down."
"Why?" A.C. asked.
"Because, as silly as it sounds, I find myself at 45 turning back into
that scared little teenage girl I once was." she said quickly, as if she
had to force the words out.
A quiet pause hung in the air, and Mary could tell that A.C. didn't
understand.
"Do you remember what it was like the first time you went to bed with a
girl?" she asked. "Jenny Wilson from cross the street, wasn't it?"
"How you'd know?" A.C. asked in surprise.
"You'd be amazed at the things I've known over the years." Mary grinned.
"Sometimes I can be very observant. But I'm digressing. Do you remember
how you felt the first time you knew you were going to go all the way. How
scared you were, whatever public image you portrayed, that Jenny might find
you lacking in some way?"
Thinking back, A.C. remembered that was exactly how he had felt.
"But that was when I was a kid." he said, as if the few years in between
then and now had been a lifetime. "I don't feel that way now."
"You don't, but I do." Mary replied. "Maybe it's because I've never had
another lover in my life. I don't know. Maybe because even after all
these years I've had this secret suspicion that I was a lousy lover but Jim
would never tell me so."
"That's nonsense, I saw you......" A.C. started to blurt out without
thinking and then realized what he had said.
"You saw me what?" Mary asked, now it was her turn to be confused.
With a sheepish grin, A.C. confessed his having seen her and Jim that
night he had slept over. He left out the part about him jacking off
afterwards and all the times he had masturbated off to her mental image,
even after he'd had visions of younger women to replace it.
"Oh my." Mary said, a slight tinge of embarrassment coloring her face
for a moment.
"Hey, it was a long time ago." A.C. interjected. "But believe me, from
what little I saw, I can honestly say that you weren't a lousy lover."