When it's more
than a crush

She’s uncommonly attractive, this auburn-haired beauty who walks into the diner in Rockville.

Her tailored pantsuit fits like a second skin, sexy but not trashy. Her hair is carefully styled and the makeup subtle. The look, the mannerisms and the attire are good, almost too good. They said, "hey I’m all woman."

But she isn’t all woman. She’s a 17-year-old high school senior in suburban Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.

She slides into the booth, keeping an appointment made by E-mail. She wants to talk.

"You know, I’m sick of all these stories and talk show routines about what happens when a young girl gets involved with an older man. It’s time someone told the other side."

What other side is that?

"My side."

Her side is a current 13-month relationship with a married man, a man who’s 44 years old, older than her father. It’s a secret she has kept from her parents and her friends for more than a year. Few people know. Few people can ever know, at least for now.

It’s not her first relationship with an older, married man. She’s pretty sure it won’t be her last.

"We talk about what happens when I turn 18 and graduate, but who am I kidding? He’s not going to divorce his wife. I know that. I may be a kid, but I’m not stupid. He’s nice to me, he’s taught me more about life than any boy my age ever could. He’s good to me."

"He" is a friend of the family, somebody who her father and mother have known for years. Their friend. Her lover.

The relationship was her idea. She planned the seduction for weeks. When it happened, he was the one who felt guilty. That was then.

"Sounds like a TV movie doesn’t it. It could be. Maybe it will be some day."

Her life sounds like a TV movie. She was 15 when she decided to put the first move on a 29-year-old man who worked for her father.

"I knew I wanted to be with him. I was just scared to make the move."

Just like in the movies, he gave her a ride home one night. They sat in his car, talking. Then they kissed. Then they did a lot more. He was willing. She was ready.

"I wanted it to happen. I had wanted it to happen for a long time. The funny thing is, he was the one who cried."

The affair only lasted a few weeks. He couldn’t handle it. At first, she was upset, then she realized it wasn’t love that drove her desire.

"So I went after one of my teachers. He was easy. We were hot and heavy for about three months, but then he started getting serious."

So she broke it off. He kept bothering her until she threatened to tell school authorities.

Next she tried guys her own age. No fireworks there.

"They were too busy fumbling around in the dark. I knew how things were supposed to work. They didn’t."

So she went back on the prowl for a new older man. She found him and it’s been 13 months now, meeting her lover three our four times a week at a motel for a hour or so of sex, usually after school, or on Sunday mornings when her parents think she is at church and his wife thinks he’s on the golf course.

"All right, so maybe it isn’t so normal as you see it, but instead of groping around with some kid in the back of a van, I’m in bed with a man who knows what he is doing and who treats me like a lady. Like I said, he’s nice to me. He’s gentle. I not only know a lot more about sex than most kids my age, but he’s taught me to be more like a woman."

Her parents spend a lot of time bragging about how she mature she is for her age, about how she doesn’t act like most teenagers. They’re right.

"I’m not a kid infatuated with an older man. I’m not even really in love with him. I am really, really fond of him and I really, really do like the sex." She giggles and, for a second, finally sounds like a teenager.

But the teenager disappears and the woman is back, staring, making eye contact and flirting, even as she talks about her relationship with her lover. She knows how she affects men and she enjoys every second of it.

She looks out the window as a Navy blue Lincoln pulls up outside.

"Gotta go. Remember when you write this to tell people that relationships like this don’t have to be like soap operas. They can have happy endings."

And she’s out the door, jumping into the Lincoln and kissing the silver-haired man at the wheel.

As they drive off, you realize how turned on you are.

And it scares the hell out of you.

--Doug Thompson
Washington, D.C.