Mrs. Robinson (Mrs. Robinson #1) by Seth King Page A

occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea what to say to the hooker I’d invited into my home.
    “So. Can we just, like, talk for a second?” I asked as the clock ticked away in the dark corner.
    “Sure.”
    “Okay. Well, tell me about yourself. Is Ben your, uh, real name?”
    He nodded, but something was flimsy in his eyes.
    “Okay, and what do you do? I mean, outside of… this ?”
    He glanced away. “Uh, I’m in school. Part time, at least. And I love to fight.”
    “…Like, street fighting?”
    “No, sorry,” he said, loosening up a little. “Mixed martial arts. In a cage. It’s something between a job and a hobby, I guess. And I really like to read and write sometimes, too.”
    “But young men who look like you aren’t supposed to be able to write,” I teased, and his shoulders fell.
    “Well, um, I’m me, and I can’t change myself, and how good I look shirtless and how well I can string together a sentence have absolutely nothing to do with each other, so…”
    “Oh, no, I’m sorry for judging you,” I blushed, wanting to kick myself in the head for hitting such a nerve. “I think that’s amazing. Sorry, I can get kind of…awkward sometimes, I guess. I don’t get out much.”
    He nodded and looked away again. Ugh . What was I doing? I hadn’t been on a date – or whatever this was – in over two decades, and it definitely showed.
    “It’s fine,” he finally said, giving me a weird look. “And…this might seem weird, but do I know you from somewhere?”
    I nearly choked on my wine – he’d seen me in the press. I wasn’t famous nationally or anything, but the local papers and magazines sometimes featured me as the quiet wife of my dazzling husband, and a few people glanced at me weirdly from time to time in the supermarket and such.
    “Nope,” I said, trying to stay cool. “I probably have a doppelganger. Anyway, what else is there to say about me? I’m pretty boring. I don’t have many hobbies. I grew up playing tennis, but I don’t play it nearly enough anymore, as you can tell. Besides that, I guess I just shop and read.”
    And go to lunch with a bunch of bitches I hate and then sit at home alone all night, I wanted to say.
    “Read what?” he asked.
    “Trash, mostly. The kinds of romance novels I’d never let my mom know about. Bodice rippers, that sort of thing.”
    “Interesting.” Another long pause followed, and I bit the inside of my cheeks. No matter how much I had glossed my hair and buffed my nails, I was still a nervous, insecure wreck, and had no idea how to proceed. I took a breath and reminded myself that it was a new century, women were allowed to have desires, and I wasn’t some desperate predator for being attracted to a twenty year old.
    An idea came to me, and I stared down at my wine. “Hey, this wine – it’s good, right?”
    “Yeah, sure. I’m not really a wine person, like I said.”
    “Well,” I explained, “it’s good because it’s aged – some things just get finer with age. Tell me, would you agree?”
    He looked over at me, turning his glass in his hand, his eyes twinkling. “Sure I do. With older things, you can taste the…experience. They’ve been around the block once or twice and they know what they’re doing. The wine, I mean.”
    I swallowed. “Good to hear.” And then: “You know, I guess I’m kind of good with my mouth, too. I can pick up on very… subtle tastes.”
    He bit his lip. What was I saying? Was I turning into some desperate cougar, like I’d feared? And was this even how the kids talked these days? I couldn’t even turn on MTV without immediately becoming clueless due to all the weird, Internet-y slang the young people used. And not to mention the difference in morals. In my day, something as simple as Candice Bergen’s character on Murphy Brown becoming a single unwed mother on television had become a national conversation, while today, JLo and Miley and whoever else twerked all over the place