It was like a scene out of some Eighties coming-of-age movie, not that he was unused that sort of thing by now. But even for her, this was a bit cinematic. There they stood, separated by a parking lot and two decades, he with his backpack slung over his shoulder, ready to brave the cold, perilous journey back to his house, and she, swept up in a heavy wool coat that somehow managed to flatter her figure despite its size. A hint of leg, a hint of breast, a hint of neck, peered out from her coat into the cold afternoon air. Her breath hung in the air in warm clouds, then was caught by the wind and pushed away to mingle with the idling exhaust from the Fiat (just as fashionable as she was) she leaned against. He was actually surprised that she didn’t croak out a greeting in her best Alan Ruck impression.
 
She smiled to see him, but he could tell something was terribly wrong in her world: the way her finger trembled slightly as she took off her Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses—too subtle to be by design, and too overt to be an accident. “Hello, darling”, she breathed. “I thought you would be cold, walking back home in this weather, don’t you know. Thought perhaps you could use a nice, warm ride home?” He surely would—not only was it near-freezing outside, but he had nearly been run over three times in the last month on that walk home—but she knew the rules just as well as he did. Better than he did, he hoped, since she came up with them: the relationship had to be kept a secret. It was simply one of the occupational hazards of dating one of your mother’s best friends.
 
She bit her lip, and he could tell that behind those pretty blue eyes, gears were turning. “Well, here’s the thing”, she continued, not waiting for the protest she had to know was coming. “I have a, ah... a function, shall we say. Tonight. At ten. And you see, everyone—simply everyone—will be there, and I am certainly a someone, yes?” She paused, fumbling around in her purse for a cigarette. He was surprised: she was supposed to be trying to quit. He wasn’t sure if it was cravings or nerves making her shake as she struck her lighter once, twice, thrice, with no success, and dropped it, swearing under her breath.
 
Nerves, he decided, as he bent down to fetch the lighter. “Thanks”, she sighed as he held it for her, lighting the cigarette, endorphins flooding her bloodstream and a blast of smoke blowing from between her plump, glossed lips.
 
“To the point”, she said finally, taking another drag and letting a smoke ring waft into the winter air. “I need a date. Would you do an old woman a kindness and accompany me?” Again, she bit her lip, clearly tense. She knew she was asking him to break a rule, a rule that she had made, and for a very good reason, and she was clearly nervous. But there was no reason to be. All it took was his smile, and all her tension melted away. She dropped her half-smoked smoke, forgotten, to the curb, and practically jumped on him, wrapping her arms around him and kicking her legs up in the air as he spun her in a hug. They smiled into each other’s lips as they kissed. “Thanks again”, she sighed as he placed her carefully back to earth.
 
“I’m so good to you”, he beamed at her.
 
She smiled, then sighed, then reached up and pinched his cheek tenderly. “It has been mentioned. Now come along, darling”, she called, shepherding him into the car. “I’m been foolish and put this off until the last minute. We’ve lots of work to do.”
 
She was a whirlwind, zipping all over town to get what she said he needed to be able to be seen in polite company. It was all a bit much, he thought, but he knew better than to open that can of worms with her, and besides: it wasn’t his money greasing the wheels of the fashion industry.
 
First, it was off for a suit. This, Rarity reasoned, speaking out loud in the car to no one in particular, was the most important part, and the most time-consuming. She must’ve given them his measurements earlier, because he thought it would take longer than the two hours it did for them to walk out, him clutching his new, five-thousand dollar suit to his chest like it were his own firstborn son. Then, shoes, which Rarity allowed to take only half an hour, though he suspected she was bitter about it. Carrying the shoes out as well, he briefly wondered why, even when it was for him, he was still carrying her shopping for her. “Because it’s the kind thing to do, darling, helping an old crone with her bags.” She stepped into him as they left the store, arm curling around his waist. “And because I can’t reward you if you don’t put in any effort. Now come along.” She stepped past him, swatting him on the butt playfully as she passed, and he could see a slight smile playing across her face.
 
Finally, after a few more errands, she deigned that they were done, and by the time they pulled in to Rarity’s house for her to get ready, it was five. The party was at ten. He wasn’t sure if five hours was going to be enough for her to get ready, but he was betting it wasn’t, from the way she grumbled and moaned. She asked him to start a shower for her, nice and warm, so that she could wipe away the day and get cleaned up for the night, while she undressed and pulled out her outfit for the party.
 
“How hot do you want it?” he called back to her, as he turned on the shower, water pattering against the tiles.
 
“Oh, I want it plenty hot”, came a soft, husky reply from behind him. The next thing he heard was a towel hitting the floor. “But I think a nice, young stud can warm me up better than any shower could.” He smiled as he heard her soft feet padding across the tile towards him, felt her cold, delicate fingers snake inside his shirt, then up his back, dragging his shirt across his skin. He lifted his arms up, and her fingers pulled the shirt right off, over his head, before tossing it to the side. Her breasts—so perky for a woman her age, yet even her incredible force of will couldn’t keep them from starting to sag—pressed against his back, and she wrapped her long arms around his body, pulling herself into him. Her hands slipped down the front of his jeans, then inside his underwear, pressing against the thin, bare skin above his hip bones. Her face pressed against his neck, and she inhaled him in long, deep drags.
 
They stayed like that for a long tie, only their heartbeats and the patter of water against the tiles and glass to make them remember that time was passing at all. Then, at last, something awoke inside her, and her nimble fingers began pulling at his belt and pants with an almost animalistic urgency, as fierce as her passions were tender just a few moments ago. She popped the buckle, then the fly, and tugged his pants down to his feet. He stepped out of them and kicked them away to the corner, next to the shirt. She turned him towards her, and pressed him against the glass of the shower, her lips meeting his in a fiery explosion of their most base desires, less a kiss than her marking her territory—or her kill.
 
He pulled her back, sliding open the glass door and stepping into the shower. He was surprised that the water didn’t just burst into steam as it hit their bodies. The tables turned, he shoved her roughly against the glass door, stepping into her, hooking his arms under her legs and pulling her up, then impaling her against the glass with a single, hungry stroke. Caught between his body and the glass, finally being satisfied, she let out a sound, half a primal growl and half a lover’s moan. The water beat a steady drum against their skin, but they didn’t feel it. The steam clouded the air in front of their eyes, but they didn’t see it. The steel holding the glass in place groaned against the heaving, thrusting weight of two bodies, but they didn’t hear it. All they could feel was her nails digging bright red furrows into the skin of his back. All they could see was a swirling, writing mass of skin and hair. All they could hear was his low, violent pillow talk and her screamed declarations of ecstasy. All they knew, all they had, all they were—was each other. She bucked her hips against his, refusing to submit and allow him to fuck her on his terms, despite being pinned between his rock and the glass’ hard place. “Down”, she commanded through her lusty haze, and he obeyed.
 
He lay on his back in the shower, staring up at her, sputtering and wiping water from his eyes as she teased him, hands flying between her heavy breasts to her snatch, her perfectly-trimmed bush soaked with a mingling of her juices and shower water. She sank down, kneeling to straddle him, both of them too far in the throes of their breed-frenzy to notice, let alone care, how uncomfortable they were. She ground against him, riding him as she would a rodeo bronco, perfectly matching the furious rhythm of his bucking thrusts with her own. She groped her breasts, hair flying as she threw her head back in physical bliss, sending droplets of water everywhere.
 
He looked up at her and saw, ringed by a halo of water and mist, lit by the buzzing halogen lights above, and the window-filtered sunlight behind, an angel. His hands on her hips, he pulled her down and held her there, against him, as their bodies were wracked by orgasm. Finally sated, finally tired, they collapsed against one another, even the effort of holding themselves up too much for their sex-fatigued bodies to bear. Water pitter-pattered on her back and dripped down onto him as they basked in their post-coital exhaustion, his cock still pumping her with cum, her cunt still spasming around him.
 
Neither of them knew how long they laid there, too overwhelmed to even speak, but at last, they rose from their reverie. Without a word, but with plenty of teasing strokes and lustful glances, they washed each other, soapy water running off their bodies and into the drain. Finally, with a final, sopping kiss, they turned off the water and wrapped themselves in warm, fluffy, pink towels.
 
*
 
“Oh, damn it all”, she swore beneath her breath.
 
He turned towards her, straightening his tie. “Hmm?”
 
“You”, she spat, glaring at him venomously. “Look at this!” She pointed down her dress. He couldn’t see a problem, scanning her from top to bottom. She was wearing a white dress, with sleeves all the way down to her wrists. Though it was cut low enough to show her collarbones, it showed no cleavage; however, it was generously cut, loose enough that it didn’t exactly hide the girls from view. He couldn’t see it, but he knew there was no back on the gown, just a deep “v” stretching from her shoulders to just above her butt. Finally, a single slit rose up the side, a flash of leg peeking out. And there he saw it: on her knee, the imprint of the drain from where she knelt down atop him in the shower, cut into flesh, the small holes dotted all over.
 
She glared at him, invisible knives cutting through the air, but all he could do was laugh. He stepped toward her, arms outstretched, and hugged her, but she turned away, giving him the cold shoulder, arms crossed. Undeterred, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, kissing her neck. “You know they’re not going to be looking at your knee, babe”, he murmured into her. “They’re going to be looking at your legs. They’re going to be looking at your face. They’re going to be looking at you. What else could they look at?” She said nothing, but he could feel her soften beneath him.
 
“Well, it’s still your fault”, she whined, but he could hear a smile on her face as she said it.
 
“You’re right. I’m a troublemaker. I’m probably a bad influence on you.” She laughed, turning with a swirl, the hem kicking out with her motion, and hugged him tight.
 
“Oh, fine. I suppose you’re right.” He leaned in for a kiss, but she pressed her hand against his lips, pushing him back. “Ah. Sorry, darling, no kissy. Can’t spoil my makeup until the ladies have seen it and I’ve made them all terribly jealous.”
 
*
 
She leaned her elbows against her car, staring at him with a bemused expression on her face. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him as he tried to open the Fiat’s door.
 
“Getting in the car”, he answered.
 
“Wrong one.”
 
His eyes widened, and so did her grin. “The Jag?” She nodded. He gulped.
 
He’d seen it sitting in the back for as long as he’d known her, swathed in a sheet like the body of Christ, but he’d never known her to drive it. A burnished, gleaming example of British styling, if not engineering, it had been sitting in her garage for years, doing nothing but looking pretty: an original, perfect, factory-original E-Type Jaguar. He pulled back the covering with an almost-religious reverence, careful not the microscopically scratch the paint with his fingernails, or smudge it with his breath. Once finally unveiled, it was beautiful, like being a teenager and seeing a naked woman in person for the first time.
 
Click. Click. Clack. Clack. Click. Click.
 
Sssp. Brrr-brrr-brrr.
 
Vrrrm.
 
And they were off, in a glorious blast from the distant past.
 
As valuable as the car was—or perhaps because of it—it was tempting for her to blast along the road, and it was tempting for him to goad her into blasting along the road. It was a temptation they gave into, screaming through the streets, blind to the world outside their windows. Even she couldn’t keep her cool, womanly composure under that kind of stimulation, and so it came to be: her hands were white-knuckle on the wheel, screaming her head off. And so, by the time they got to the party, they were both very satisfied.
 
*
 
She smiled at the valet’s look as she handed him the key, and then she forgot all about him as they breezed past, into the glossy, plastic world of high society. She clung to his arm, letting him lead the way but guiding him nevertheless. The house was enormous—he assumed it belonged to one of Rarity’s friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friends—there had to be at least a thousand people at this party, at least. It seemed that each room they passed held something new: a debauched orgy in one, a multibillionaire talking about his strategy for buying race horses in another, and yet another containing what could only be described as a fight club, all next to each other.
 
Next to him, Rarity was aglow, basking in the attention from the men and the jealous looks from the women, though he wasn’t sure if they were jealous because of him, or because she still looked so young. She met each plastic smile’s icy stare, laughing it away easily.
 
For a few hours, they mingled, chatting with rich industrialists, politicians, artists, and the like, and even one man convinced he was the reincarnation of Elvis Presley. Then, with a squeal, Rarity noticed someone in the crowd. “Ah! He’s here.” She turned to him, her face deathly serious. “Darling, do you see that man over there?” He could barely pick one out from the press of humanity, but he spotted a man in a double-breasted suit, wearing a monocle. “Him?”
 
“Yes, him. I’ve a confession: all of this, the suit, the shoes, all of it: he’s the reason I came to this party. This conversation could decide the rest of my life. You stay here. I need to have a chat with Mr. Fancypants.” She noticed his expression, or perhaps heard his quiet snort. “No, that’s really his name.”
 
With that, she went off into the crowd, moving with an easy grace through the chaos, a path seeming to open up for her. While most people simply disappeared back into the crowd, she was never lost to his eye, never difficult to find. But when he turned to grab a drink, she was gone.
 
He waited, nursing his drink and chatting idly to a bizarre man obsessed with weight-lifting. It takes all kinds, he thought to himself. He didn’t have to wait long, however. Sashaying back towards him, Rarity wore a look somewhere between panic and disgust. “We need to leave right now”, she hissed, her tone and her look driving away the weight-lifter. “What’s wrong?” he asked her, falling in with her as she blew past him, making a beeline for the nearest exit. She said nothing.
 
As they crossed the threshold, he asked her again, and still she said nothing. Finally, as her heels clack-clacked against the stone steps leading up to the door, he asked her again, and she answered. “Oh, God. I just saw your mother in there. I didn’t think she was going to be here, I didn’t know she knew Diana. She—well, you know how good friends we are. The thing is, though, well... she asked to meet my date. Which would, of course, be you.” She handed the valet her ticket, and he ran off to fetch her car, leaving them alone in the cold night air.
 
He stared at her, eyes wide and mouth agape, and for the second time that day, he couldn’t help but to burst out laughing. “It’s not funny!” she snapped, clearly furious. “If she knew I was... well... with her son, she’d simply kill me.”
 
The valet rolled up, and she slid into the Jag once again. He followed her. They were silent the whole ride home, none of the levity from their earlier ride present.
 
*
 
They flopped down on the couch, still in the clothes they wore to the party. She was too tired to change, and too tired to care about wrinkles. She lay on the sofa, feet on his lap, shoes kicked off, still laying on the floor of the car. His hands absently rubbed them, soothing the pain her heels had caused. Some nonsense buzzed on the television, but neither of them was really watching it. He was just about to spring his surprise for her when he looked over at her and saw the beginnings of tears glistening in her eyes.
 
When she noticed him, she snuffled the tears back, putting on a brave face. “Oh, it’s nothing”, she warbled. “I was just thinking about you. Us.”
 
Wordlessly, he slid her feet off his lap, pulling himself in closer to her and wrapping an arm around her, silently bidding her to continue, to lay her problems on him. “Well, seeing your mother there, it got me thinking. I’m old enough to be your mother. And I’m not getting any younger, you know.” He had been dreading this talk, but he knew he couldn’t put it off forever.
 
“You’re young. You don’t know what you want yet. You’re going to meet a girl your own age and you’re going to fall in love and she’s going to get you and I’m going to be so happy for the both of you.” The words came faster now, as did the tears. “Really, I am. You deserve a girl your age, to grow old with you. Not some crazy woman who’s already grown old on her own.” He pulled her in, hugging her. She made a half-hearted attempt to push him off, but he held her firm, and she melted into him, crying. “Ha. Look at me. I know this is just a diversion for you. I know you’re going to leave me for the first blond, leggy, perky-titted Jane that flutters her eyelashes at you. I probably shouldn’t get so worked up over it, right? You’re just my boy-toy. It’s not like I had any claim to you, right, darling? It’s not as though we love each other.” She snorted at that last statement.
 
He said nothing, holding her against him. He knew she was wrong—he loved her, at least, and he wasn’t going to leave her unless she made him. But he also knew he couldn’t just say that. He knew that anything he said would just make her feel worse, that he was lying to her or just trying to save her feelings. So he decided to say everything without saying anything.
 
He reached under her chin, turned her face towards his, and kissed her.
 
She snuffled again, and he kissed her again. She smiled weakly, and he kissed her again. She kissed him back, and he kissed her again. He knew the only way he could tell her the way he felt about her right now was to show her. But there was one thing he did have to tell her. “I forgot to tell you. I have a surprise for you.”
 
She swallowed a sob. “I like surprises.”
 
“I can stay the night.”
 
*
 
They had gone to bed at five in the morning, and by the time he left her house it was nearly five in the afternoon. In that time, they had made love, discussed their relationship, had a fight, broken up, gotten back together, made love again, and shared the last bowl of cereal in the box. And as he left her house, very tired and very satisfied, her standing in the doorway in a bathrobe and nothing else, he smiled to himself, whistling a tune that he knew by heart but couldn’t quite remember.
 
He rolled down the window of his car as he started to pull away. “Love you”, he called to her. She smiled wide, truly happy. “Love you too”, she replied.
 
He pulled away. The days were getting longer.