Page 34 of Who's Playing You
I felt like a teenager with a crush all over again. It felt so foreign to me, but the butterflies in my stomach were very real.
I still felt somewhat conflicted over my feelings over someone whom I was teaching. From years of being a professor and also being married, I’d never thought of my students in any other way than in a professional manner. But here we were,Nicholas being my kind-of-sort-of student and at the same time not really, yet… there was something more there. And it wasn’t some ethical boundary I was crossing by thinking of him this way.
One thing that did have me thinking was his age though. I knew that he must be younger than me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. A year or two would be fine, but I was pushing thirty. For whatever reason, if I had to guess, I thought maybe he was in his mid-twenties. Was I okay with that?
I wasn’t sure.
In most cases, there was a vast difference between someone who was thirty and someone who was twenty five-ish, where they were in life and their life experiences were usually drastically different and at odds. It would never work.
I thought of how his potentially much-younger age made me feel, but then I also thought about him: how would he feel knowing that I was thirty? Did he even know how old I was? I mean, I looked pretty good for my age, even if I did say so myself.
Maybe he thought I was closer to his age? But it’s not like he didn’t know that I was a college professor. Professors are normally… well,seasoned. This line of thinking had me going down a slippery slope of, what in the world would a maybe-twenty-five-year-old beautiful specimen of a man want with a thirty-year-old divorcee who can’t have kids?
As soon as that hit, I slowed my role. I literally said, “whoa, whoa, whoa” to myself at one point.
Me thinking my inability to have kids had any bearing on any potential relationship between us was crazy. Maybe he was just a friendly guy who liked to flirt, and maybe he wasn’t even into me like I was fantasizing. I was getting so way ahead of myself thinking about how my age could be a deterrent for him. But this was just how my brain worked.
I’d never had a one night stand. I didn’t do random dates. I dated, for the long-term.
My dating experience consisted of four boyfriends - four relationships. That was the entirety of my body count. But I couldn’t help it if my brain immediately went from “he’s gorgeous” to “I think he likes me and I like him too” to “there might be more here” to “what does more look like? Does it involve long-term, marriage and family?” I couldn’t help that this was the natural transition of my thoughts.
But this was all contexture based on some facts and a lot of assumptions. After all, I had no idea how old he actually was.
When I questioned him about his age, he always skirted around the topic. In all fairness, it wasn’t as if I had asked him outright, but he never really touched the topic when I in a roundabout way brought it up, which at the time didn’t stand out as him being evasive about it. But having had all week to sit in my thoughts as I muddled about my life, it was nagging at me.
Part of my thinking was worry over getting invested and then disappointed if the age gap were too much. Possible disappointment ifhewould think if the age gap were too much as well. Societal stigma over an older woman and younger man…
I had to stop, because this line of thinking was crazy.
I was getting so far ahead of myself, but once I got into this spiral, it seemed I couldn’t stop myself. But it was stupid. It was a waste of time.
I only had a few precarious weeks left before the fall semester began, and even though Nicholas having booked my entire retreat schedule - and paying in full - my other goal for the summer had been to work on my figure drawing. And I’d gotten nowhere with it.
I had gotten absolutely zero bites on all my queries and posts for a model, which sucked. I let out a defeated breath about it.I guess I’d have to resort to finding model photos and maybe watching a little porn for inspiration.
Or perhaps the porn could just be an aid to help me relieve some of the sexual tension that I had felt building for the past week.
I let out another heavy sigh as I threw my notebook on my coffee table and gazed out the window.
My phone buzzed from where it was hidden under a scattering of pillows, text books, and notes on the couch. It probably would have been comical from the outside to watch me dive for the damn thing, as my stomach rose to my throat in hope and anxiety that it was Nicholas.
To my delight it was him, and an immediate smile graced my lips.
Nicholas:
Hey beautiful. How’s your day been so far?
I grinned. He began calling me beautiful on Wednesday, when after texting all evening he signed off by calling me beautiful and telling me goodnight.
It made me feel… special.
I hadn’t realized how desperately I’d wanted to feel that way, and it wasn’t until he called me beautiful that I realized it had been missing from my life.
Hey! Oh you know, just living the dream, one day at a time. How about you? Busy day?
Nicholas:
Yeah, you could say that. I’m beat.
