Hey Nineteen

"Well, I did," she said. My right hand lay idly on the center console, and she took it in her left one. The move surprised me, but it wasn't at all unpleasant.

"And now that you know I'm more than twice your age?"

"I--" she started, but then began laughing instead. "I guess that's true, yeah."

"It was a long time ago, sure, but I was pretty decent at math in high school. I think I can figure out what half of 40 is," I answered. She laughed again. "And what's so funny?"

"Well, for one, you're not 40 yet," she replied. "And just... I just thought of something else, about our ages. Inside joke. But it doesn't matter how old you are. I still don't care. It's a number."

I squeezed her hand now. There was definitely something to this girl, something I wanted to learn a lot more about.

We drove in comfortable silence for another 20 or so minutes, as I just looped loosely around the Ohio State campus, not really paying much attention to where I was going. We stole glances at each other, though she stared a bit more openly, while I tried to keep my looks a little more on the furtive side. It was really refreshing -- so many of the younger generation have to fill every empty gap with noise, no matter how pointless or inane. But Trina seemed happy just riding along and looking at me.

"Houston?" she asked, her voice quiet and surprisingly, somewhat shy now. I just looked at her. "Do you think you could take me home now?"

"That was the point of this exercise, was it not?" I asked, a touch of mirth seeping into my voice.

"Yes, but..." she said, trailing off and searching for the words. "What if I wanted you to do more than just drop me off?"

The look on her face told me exactly what she had in mind. Her blue eyes danced wildly now. I'd come no closer to deciding how far I was going to push things, but those eyes...

"I'm not sure that's such a great idea," I answered.

"Oh," she said, her eyes dropping to her lap, but just briefly. She wasn't going to be deterred. "Well, I'm at least going to give you my number, then, and--"

"I said it might not be a great idea, Trina," I continued. "Didn't say I wasn't going to do it."

She blushed again, but after a few seconds she started giving me directions to her apartment. A few minutes later, I parked on the street next to what looked like a typical college apartment building, in the midst of at least three or four blocks full of them. I jumped out of the truck, and by the time I'd made it to her side, she'd opened the door but hadn't quite climbed down yet.

I cleared my throat, and when she looked the question at me, I made a shooing motion toward her legs, suggesting that she swing them back into the cab. She rolled her eyes just a little bit when she figured out what I meant, but there was a smile on her face, too. She closed the door, and I waited a couple seconds before opening it again. She took my hand as I helped her down to the sidewalk.

"Sorry, Mr. Old-Fashioned," she said. "I'll try to remember next time."

"Oh, there's going to be a next time, huh?" I chuckled. She just grinned and raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to offer up a challenge that never came.

We took the stairs to the third floor, and I was more than happy to follow her down the corridor. She looked back over her shoulder and caught me staring. I looked up at her eyes to return her smile, but then pointedly returned my gaze to her luscious ass. She just laughed and threw a slight shimmy into her step.

The first thing I noticed when we entered her apartment was the sheer volume of red. Everywhere.

"Ugh," I groaned. "It's like Ohio State University vomited all over your apartment."

There were football posters on the walls, OSU blankets on the couch and magnets on the fridge. Anything that could have an OSU logo on it, did.

"That's THE Ohio State University, mister," she said, poking me in the chest. "And yeah, it's almost like we're literally one minute from campus, huh?"

"I live a couple miles from the other side of campus," I said. "But I don't drink that nasty Buckeye kool-aid."

"Well, I do," she answered. "You did notice my mask at the store, right?" She reached into her purse, took out the repugnant bandana she'd been wearing, and tossed it on the kitchen counter.

"I did," I said solemnly, now standing on the other side of the counter from her. "I was just hoping you'd come to work and realized you forgot your mask, and since you had to come up with something, you just grabbed some ratty handkerchief off the ground in the parking lot."

She laughed. "No such luck. Even if I wasn't born and raised here, they're actually paying me to drink that kool-aid."

"What, you mean, like a scholarship?" I asked.

"Yeah, pretty close to a full-ride," she said. "Majoring in engineering."

"I run a construction company," I said. "We work with the teachers and some of the grad students over here sometimes. That's not an easy program to get into, Miss Katrina. Consider me impressed."

She ate the compliment up and beamed back at me.

"Still, I think I'd rather go to a school with a lesser program and save my dignity," I finished, and she couldn't help but laugh again.

"Lemme guess," she started. "Michigan fan?"

"Aw, hell no," I said. "Texas, remember? Hook 'em 'Horns!" I flashed the Longhorn hand symbol.

"So you're a fan of a team that hasn't been relevant since 2011," she said, nodding as if she suddenly understood. "It's jealousy. Got it."

I grinned back. This girl could give as good she got.

"No, not really," I explained. "I think if you ever left this Columbus bubble, you'd find your team is kinda like the Yankees. The only ones that don't hate you are the ones that love you."

"Well, we have a way to go match the Yankees' 27 rings," she said. "But the Buckeyes have won 8 national titles. Almost a third of the way there."

I'm sure my jaw dropped open.

"Ok, first off, I hate the Yankees," I said.

"Yeah, me too," she admitted. "The Indians haven't won a title since before your parents were born. See? Jealousy. And for you... the Astros?"

"Used to be," I said. "Until this past offseason, when all that sign-stealing shit came out. I'm here for the long haul, so I switched allegiances to the Indians myself. I can't stand cheaters. Of any kind."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, licking her lips just a little and scooting around the end of the counter until she was standing just a few feet away.

"But seriously, any woman who can just casually drop how many rings the Yankees have into a random conversation... age be damned, that woman is worth looking at a little more closely."

"About time you noticed," she said, closing the gap and trailing her fingers lightly over my forearm. "I'm gonna run to my room and change. There's drinks in the fridge. Help yourself."

I dutifully watched her walk away again, then turned my attention to the fridge. There was a case of Deer Park water on the bottom shelf, and I grabbed a bottle, killing half of it in one gulp.

So what the fuck was I actually doing here?

After my last -- and only -- experience getting involved with someone Trina's age, I swore I'd never hook up with someone more than 10 years younger than me ever again. Sex simply for the sake of sex had long since lost its appeal to me, and I just couldn't connect with the younger generation. Sure, there was a time when all I cared about was brand new music, who was dating who, and what other people thought of me. That phase had ended somewhere around the time Trina was born, in the arid deserts of Afghanistan.

I remembered talking to some grizzled first sergeants and older officers back in those days, and to a man, they all said sex appeal, while still important, was nowhere near the top of the list of things they'd want from a woman if they found themselves on the market again. It sounded odd to me at the time, but now, I'd become one of them.

But Trina wasn't just sex appeal. Judging by the confrontation at the store, she had a fighting spirit and she knew how to stand up for herself. Obviously she could hold her own in a verbal sparring match with me, as I'd already seen a couple of times. She made me laugh without even trying, and judging by her Aretha Franklin knowledge, she recognized that important things in pop culture had, in fact, occurred prior to her birth. I was still blown away by her sports knowledge, and if her college experience was any indication, she was smart as a whip. Yeah, she had her youthful moments -- not knowing why I'd want to open her door, and expecting me to treat her like a piece of meat -- but all in all, she seemed more mature than a lot of women I knew 10 years her senior.

And yeah, she had sex appeal. Fucking boatloads of sex appeal.

Fuck it. Stop overthinking shit.

Trina had an Amazon Echo plugged in next to the toaster, so I decided to fill the silence with some tunes.

"Alexa, play music by the Police."

I watched the hockey puck turn blue. "Playing the Police, on Amazon Music." One of their underrated tunes from the early 80s, "Spirits in the Material World," spilled out of the speaker, and that was as good a soundtrack as any to kill off the rest of the water bottle.

The song was maybe half over when I heard a door open just past the kitchen. Trina padded into the room barefoot, with toes painted the same light blue as her fingernails. Her gray shorts only ran about halfway down her thighs, and I took my time admiring her mostly bare legs. She wore a red Ohio State T-shirt that was a size too small, so it gave me a clear outline of her constricted breasts and it left the lower half of her stomach exposed for my viewing pleasure. Her dark hair was still swept up into a ponytail that hung well past her shoulders, and her face was void of makeup except for a very pale shade of pink on her lips.

She saw me staring -- she'd have had to been blind not to -- and spun around to let me see the other side. The shorts framed her ass exquisitely, and when she looked back over her shoulder to make sure I was still paying attention, her ponytail swung back and forth. She winked at me before going to the fridge herself.

"You want some iced tea?" she asked.

"No, I just finished a bottle of water, actually," I answered.

"Want another one?"

"Sure." I answered before I remembered that the case of water was on the bottom shelf, meaning she had to bend over to get to it. Considering that was most likely why she offered anyway, I took another nice, long look at her ass.

"Oh!" she exclaimed standing up and handing me the water. I wondered if it'd be too obvious if I just dumped it all over my crotch. "This is the guy who sings "Every Breath You Take," right? Sting? It sounds like him anyway."

"He's the one singing, yeah," I said, pausing as I opted for the more traditional use of the water bottle. "Before he went solo, he led a band called the Police. This is them. Actually, "Every Breath You Take" was the Police, too."

"I still get points for recognizing the voice, right?" she giggled.

"You do," I agreed, "but you can stop worrying about all that, Trina. You already won the game, by mercy rule. I don't care about your age anymore."

"I'm glad to hear that," she said with a sincere smile. "Why did you in the first place?"

I sighed. I wasn't sure this was really the time to bring up the past, but what the hell.

"My first time back in the dating scene, a couple years after my divorce went final," I said. "I only moved here because my ex-wife did, to be near her parents, and I wanted to be as close to my daughter as possible. So I didn't know anybody here, and I'll be damned if I was gonna try to figure out that swipe-left, swipe-right shit in my late 30s."

She laughed heartily.

"So some of the young guys at the job site decided to set me up with one of their friends," I continued. "Had me over to some keg party, where just about everyone in attendance was literally half my age, and remember, this was two years ago. The girl they wanted me to meet was this 19-year-old named Morgan. And hell, she was hot, but even when I was that age, I rarely jumped directly into bed with a girl, ya know? I tried to talk to her, get to know her a little bit first. I swear, for an hour, all we talked about was makeup, where all her high school friends were going to college, and the Jonas Brothers."

She giggled even harder now.

"She made it clear from the beginning that she was, as she called it, 'DTF,' though I had no fucking clue what that meant at the time," I said.

"Down to fuck," Trina nodded, still trying to get her laughter under control.

"Yeah, found that out later," I said. "Told me she was into older guys, and I was hot... I guess she thought being so much younger than me, I was just happy to be in her presence."

"Let me guess," Trina said. "You left her ass at the party."

"I wish I could say that I did," I said with a rueful smile. "At almost any other point in my life, I would have. But it had been almost three years for me, and, like I said... she was hot. Anyway, the sex was decent, but not great, and the little bit of conversation I tried to strike up afterward fell flatter than a football at a Pats game. I decided it might be best to stick a little closer to my own age group from that point on."

She chuckled again. "I can understand that, but still, it's just one encounter with one girl, right?"

"True."

"And even with the negative parts, it still had to be great for your ego, right? Your first time back on the horse, and you bag a 19-year-old hottie?"

"Also true," I grinned. "I'm learning I have something of a talent for that."

She walked over to me and ran her fingernails lightly across my chest, through my polo shirt.

"Well, you haven't bagged me... yet."

"Speaking of that," I smirked. "What exactly is all this about for you?"

"I thought it was pretty obvious, Houston," she answered.

"I mean, if this is just about being grateful for what happened at the store..." I trailed off.

"No," she said. "I've already said thank you for that a dozen times. I won't lie... my adrenaline was pumping pretty good, and I don't think it's really stopped yet. But you had my juices flowing well before you rescued me."

I just raised my eyebrows at that.

"You see... what was her name? Morgan?" I nodded. "She had the right idea. I'm into older guys, too, and you are more than just simply 'hot.'" She put her fingers up in quotations for emphasis. "However, I'm not so full of myself to think that you should just be happy to be near me because of our ages. And I think I've proven that I can hold my own in a conversation."

"You have at that," I agreed. "So, older guys, huh?"

She laughed again. "I mean, not all of them, of course. I still want a man who looks good, and one who's active and in shape." She left her fingers wander across my biceps and down my forearms, and I sucked in a sharp breath when she jumped across to my abs. I no longer had the six-pack of my youth, but it was still hardened muscle. "Mmm... no problems there."

I gently laid my hands on the waistband of her gray shorts. "Good to know."

"I heard what that jackass said at the store, and no, I did not 'spread it around like butter on toast,'" she spat. "But I've had my share of sex with boys my age and I wasn't impressed. Most of them didn't give a shit whether I enjoyed it or not, and even the one or two who did, they were too timid or inexperienced to really do anything about it. It didn't get much better in college, and around Christmas break last year, I decided I was done with it."

"Crushing the hearts and spirits of the entire Ohio State male undergraduate population, I'm sure," I replied, lightly stroking her waist and her lower back.

"Maybe so," she shrugged. "Just after the second semester began, I hooked up with one of my friends' professors, her World History teacher. He was only 29 or 30, but even that little bit of a difference was life-changing. It stopped just short of the mind-blowing experience I've heard sex can be, but it was enough to know that I needed to be focusing all my energy and attention on more experienced guys."

"Just the one time with him, huh?" Her hands were in my short brown hair now, and mine had slid onto her generous ass, lightly squeezing it through her shorts.

"Well, twice," she said. "Even though he isn't my professor, he was still worried about what might happen if he got caught with any student. I managed to talk him into it one more time, but I understood his concerns, and I left him alone after that."

"Awfully kind of you," I said.

"I thought so," she said. "That didn't stop me from noticing each and every older man on campus, though. The coaches, the administrators, the computer lab guys, and yes, the professors... of course, a lot of them were too old, or not in shape, or just not attractive, but it's a big campus, so I found plenty to look at. It got to where I would ask my friends to help me rate them when they walked by. That's what I was laughing about earlier."

"Your little inside joke?" She'd wrapped her arms around my back and just laid her head on my shoulder as I got more aggressive with her ass, kneading it vigorously and occasionally slipping my fingertips under the waistband and grasping bare flesh before pulling back out.

"Yeah. One of my friends, Sierra, she just doesn't get my thing. Well, none of my friends do, really, but she likes to bring it up the most. Mmm..." she moaned, pausing briefly to enjoy my fingers. "Anyway, one day after a group of professors strolled by, she saw me looking after them, and blurted out, 'You better be careful, Trina, or you're going to end up fucking some guy twice your age.'"

I couldn't help it -- I laughed right along with her now.

"Is that what we're about to do, Trina?" My voice was almost a growl now, yet barely louder than a whisper.

She bit her lip and moaned again. "If you keep rubbing my ass like that, Houston, we're about to do whatever the fuck you want."

That sounded like an invitation if I'd ever heard one. I grabbed her ponytail and used it to tilt her head back, and while her eyes flared up in hunger at the motion, they snapped shut the instant I pressed my lips against hers. The kisses were light and tender at first, but they soon grew more intense and enthusiastic. When I sucked her lower lip between mine, she moaned into my mouth. When she forced her tongue between my lips and pressed it against mine, I moaned back.

I wrapped my arms around her back and turned us around, pushing her up against the counter and trailing my lips across her cheek, down her neck and onto her collarbone. When I met resistance in the form of her T-shirt, I quickly tugged it up and over her head, leaving her in just a lacy black bra that I couldn't imagine was part of her original work attire. She cried out as I softly bit her shoulder, and she made soft, cute little noises as I continued down her left arm, not stopping until I reached her fingers.

She squirmed a little when I nipped at the soft flesh below her rib cage, and I kissed across her belly, relishing the soft curves there but pushing hard enough with my lips to feel the muscle sheathed just below. I ran my hands up her sides, stopping just short of her tits. I could see her nipples harden in anticipation.

I'd tried to use caution with this girl, knowing that I really wasn't down for some kind of one-night stand roll in the hay. That would have to wait for later, though, because this young woman had officially gotten to me, and as much as I knew she wanted me, I wanted her just as much.

"I'm not shy, Trina," I said, my words occasionally muffled by her skin. "Like you said, I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want to you." Her eyes danced wildly again, and she licked her lips. "But I promise you, I'll stop whatever I'm doing at any time. All you have to do is tell me to, with your words, with your hands, with body language, whatever you can use. OK?" My eyes slid up to look at her face; flushed, almost glowing, but definitely smiling.