Page 82 of Cougar Chronicles

MrsRobinson:I wasn’t consciously looking for a cub either. I got lucky in that I found a man, who happened to be younger, who wasn’t interested in having children. He’s a great stepdad to my two daughters.

Sheesh. Stacy hadn’t even considered the kid issue. Michael was nearly ten years younger than she. Surely he would want kids. Stacy had wanted kids at one time, but it hadn’t happened with David, and now she figured she was too old. Only months away from her forty-sixth birthday. Perimenopause could set in any day now. Yes, she’d wanted to be a mother at one time, but now? She wasn’t so sure she could do it.

But…

Oh, God.

It had been three weeks since the writers’ conference. When had she had her last period? She did some quick mental calculations. It had come well before the conference, and she hadn’t had one since. She’d stopped keeping track during her marriage to David. Though they’d had their sterile sex regularly, she’d never gotten pregnant. She’d assumed after a while that she was sterile.

Oh, God again.

Could David have been the sterile one?

Of course not. She was sterile. And even if she wasn’t, Michael had used a rubber each time. She was obviously worrying over nothing. For crying out loud, at her age, she was bound to start getting irregular. And who knew what regular was? She hadn’t been keeping track anyway.

MrsRobinson:Are you still there, Stacy?

She jolted back to reality.

StacyStarr:Yeah, I’m here.

Here and freaking out.

StacyStarr:How many of you cougars are there on this site?

MrsRobinson:Quite a few of us. Simone and Katelyn are the two women who started the site. They’re here quite a bit. Not sure where they are tonight.

HollyGolightly:Simone’s out of town. I don’t know where Katelyn is. But we have over five hundred women registered on the site now, and we get over 10,000 hits every day.

StacyStarr:Wow. That’s amazing. And all these relationships started without any conscious thought of age?

MrsRobinson:Of course we can’t speak for all of them. Simone, for example, has always loved younger men and looks for them. But most of them seem to have started without any thought to age.

StacyStarr:I find that very interesting.

MrsRobinson:Why?

StacyStarr:Well, I guess because it seems like those types of relationships could go the same way as the older man/younger woman relationships. You know, when a young woman is looking for a sugar daddy?

MrsRobinson:Of course that’s possible. But I don’t know of any relationships on this site that are like that.

StacyStarr:I guess I don’t see why a younger man would want an older woman then, unless he was looking for a sugar mama.

HollyGolightly:Stacy, can I ask you something?

StacyStarr:Of course.

HollyGolightly:We’re not talking about research any more, are we?

Warmth crept into Stacy’s cheeks. How did they know?

StacyStarr:No. We’re not.

HollyGolightly:You want to tell us what happened?

Yes, she wanted to tell them. She had to tell someone, and here, veiled by a computer screen, perhaps she’d be comfortable speaking her mind. She started pouring out the story, and as she typed, an anvil lifted from her shoulders. Nothing would change, but damn, if felt good to talk about it.

MrsRobinson:And you haven’t had any contact with Michael since?

---