Meeting Christina again

Upstairs you shower and shave, your mind wandering back to Christina and the hot electric feel of her mouth on yours. Based on what you've seen so far, she's a woman that's outside your previous experience, and that fact alone is very intriguing.

While you've had no shortage of sexual partners since you were in high school, almost all of them could charitably be described as groupies, drawn to you for your athletic status and relatively easy to fuck. It is only in the last two years that you've really had to work at getting laid, and only slowly discover the tools to do so. Christina represents something very different, and immensely exciting.

You dress in fashionably casual clothes, check yourself in the mirror with a smile and head downstairs. Your timing is perfect. Just as you reach the bottom there's a knock on the door. You open it to find Christina smiling at you, dressed in a black skirt that comes to just above her knees and a loose fitting long sleeved top of some shiny material. She gives you an appraising grin as you open the door followed by a perfunctory hug of welcome.

"Nice place," she smiles. "Much better than my room. Women need seniority to get a cottage." Without asking she steps inside, her eyes evaluating everything she sees.

"Hi, I'm Mason Carter," your roommate says, appearing from the back of the cottage.

"Hi Mason, Christina Thorpe. Pleased to meet you." she gives him the same brief hug that she gave you and you feel a momentary pang of disappointment.

"Biology, right?" she asks, then smiles as Mason nods. "You should have fun. Most of these girls think biology begins and ends with their hormones being on overdrive." Your roommate looks surprised for a moment, then laughs.

"That would make them the same as every other high school kid I've taught."

"Fair enough," Christina laughs. "Well we better get going," she says with a glance at you. "You're welcome to come along Mason, but I'm afraid my car only seats two."

"That's fine, I'm pretty tired. I've had a long day and I'm just wanting to settle in. The price of age and all that."

She gives him a dazzling smile and another brief hug, then leads you out the door and down the path.

"I'm parked underground up near the Mellon building," she smiles. "Mason seems pretty chill."

"I just met him, but yeah, he does. A bit nervous but chill."

"What did you do with the rest of your afternoon?"

"Explored, had a late lunch. That was pretty much it. This place sure has a lot of money spent on it."

She laughs and tosses her black hair as she looks at you. "Now that's the understatement of the week." The two of you walk in silence for a moment before she glances at you.

"Tell me what kind of music you like."

"Rock, blues, some country," you answer. "Most music, to be honest. It's not so much the style as how well it's played."

"You're from California right?"

"Visalia," you nod.

"When I was touring we did a show in Fresno, that's close, right?"

"About an hour away. Less."

"You miss it? Visalia I mean."

"I sometimes miss my family, but the town is nothing to miss. There are a hundred just like it in California."

"Probably not much different from here, except hotter and drier," she nods. "What was it like, moving out here to play ball?"

"It was different. Burlington is even smaller than Visalia, but I liked Vermont a lot. Being away from home wasn't a big deal, I'd got used to that when I went to college. The difference was suddenly not being a success."

She nods thoughtfully and the two of you walk in silence for a while. "Hard when a dream dies, isn't it? At least you didn't let it kill you. I've seen too many people sitting around and talking about 'what might have been' and not doing anything about the next chapter in their lives."

"Honestly, for about a year after they cut me, I hated everything about baseball. Went back to school and worked my ass off to train as a teacher. Then after that I realised I missed the game, and I could still enjoy it even if I was never going to play in the Show. I've come to terms with it."

She looks at you and gives you that dazzling smile again, touching your arm and pointing to the parking garage. "I'm in here," she says.

She leads you to a bright yellow Mazda Miata, which stands out in stark contrast to the generally conservative vehicles parked nearby. She glances at you as though gauging your reaction, smiling as you admire the sports car's sleek lines.

"Why am I not surprised you drive something like this?" you laugh.

"The way you saw me dressed this afternoon, I would have thought you expected me to drive a Harley."

"Well, it occurred to me," you say with a smile, sliding into the car.

"It's a nice night," she says, starting the engine and putting the top down. "It's not a long drive, but it's a fun drive," she adds as she reverses out of the parking stall and accelerates out of the garage. She drives carefully off the campus but as she turns onto the public road she presses the accelerator and the car leaps forward. Wind lashes at you, blowing any attempt at conversation away. Christina presses a button on the CD player and the speakers blare with the driving chords of Bo Diddley's 'Who Do You Love.' Her head bobs to the music, and you can see her lips move to the lyrics as you settle back and enjoy the drive, watching the landscape scroll by.