“Don’t you want to fuck me too?”

The 18-year-old babysitter’s words echoed in my mind in the next few days at my soulless office, which was lit in a permanent florescent noonday glow. The night after she gave me the blowjob, I paid Kristine for her time babysitting, and told her to go home. As much as I wanted to take her up to my bedroom and have my way with her, I simply couldn’t risk the fact that my son might hear us.

After his mother’s passing Luke had had trouble at school. Not acting out, really, more like the opposite. He withdrew and stayed alone on the playground. A teacher found him sitting in the sandbox where the younger children play, quietly sifting the sand through his hands, staring into the dust it stirred up when it hit the ground.

“It’s like he’s having an existential crisis, and he’s only ten,” Mrs. Lehmann, the school counselor, told me. She didn’t know if this was normal behavior for children who had lost parents. She didn’t have any recommendations, except that I keep an eye on him and try to get him to talk about his feelings, which I did anyway. Her eyes were visibly moist, and when she talked about the teacher finding Luke alone with the sand she even seemed to suppress a sob.

I didn’t know if it was normal for counselors to be unable to control their emotions, and I decided it didn’t matter. I had a hard time myself sometimes.

For this reason and many others, I decided I could not see Kristine again. The moments of lust that we had shared for time that she was stretched across my lap and while she sucked my cock had been a welcome change from the constant drudgery of my life after my wife’s death, which consisted of the gym, office and home. I loved my son and I loved every moment that I was able to spend with him, but I sorely missed my wife’s touch. For the first few months after her passing, I couldn’t be aroused by anything.

I even tried sleeping with a friend of my wife’s who had more or less thrown herself at me during the funeral. She was a quite attractive 40-year-old mother of two who was in great shape from her job teaching bikram yoga. We fucked for almost an hour in a variety of positions until I had to admit to her that I couldn’t feel anything and was never going to cum. She never called me back afterwards, even though she assured me that she understood. I went months without even thinking about sex. Kristine had been the first to change this.

After my decision not to see Kristine anymore, I had to hire a new babysitter. I really disliked the process. Mike, my poker buddy, had recommended Kristine to me because his oldest daughter was a classmate of hers. I couldn’t ask him for another recommendation without telling him about our encounter. I went through the process of placing ads. I knew that I was going to have to explain to Luke at some point why Kristine wasn’t coming back, so I stayed around the house for the next several weeks and did without seeing my friends or any kind of adult contact outside of work.

In the meantime, several calls came from local girls who wanted to babysit. I interviewed three of them, but they all seemed immature. I considered hiring a 19-year-old college student named Katie who seemed responsible enough, but when she mentioned her boyfriend I couldn’t help but flash back to the night I saw Kristine giving head to her friend from school, and so I told her I’d think it over, but I never called her back. I couldn’t risk hiring a slutty sitter for a second time.

Finally, I ran into an older woman from the church we used to go to who offered to sit for Luke anytime that I wanted to go out. She told me that her daughter, recently divorced, was ready to date again. Thinking I should take my mind off of Kristine, I decided to take the woman up on her offer, and to give her daughter a call as well.

Her daughter’s name was Mara, she was 28 years old, and she worked in human resources for a local company but was passionate about writing. I had no idea what this particular combination of qualities would add up to in person.

She was obviously expecting my call, so we moved past the formalities quickly and arranged to meet at a local TGI Fridays. I was afraid my choice of restaurant would insult her writerly pretensions but we both lived nearby and the closest non-chain restaurant was an hour in every direction.

As Friday approached, I was nervous about the date, but not for the normal reasons. I was afraid of disappointing Mara because of my general apathy; I was afraid she would feel like I was using her as a foothold on my way out of my pit of despair.

She was already at the bar when I arrived. I recognized her from the pictures we had exchanged via e-mail. She had dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and a sympathetic face. Thankfully she was slim, which was by no means something that goes without saying the in Midwestern united states. I was relieved to see her drinking beer, and a Samuel Adams at that, which spoke volumes for our potential future compatibility.

We sat at a booth and ordered an appetizer, an assortment of small bits of food, each of which had lost its individual particularities of appearance and flavor during its trip through the deep fryer. I was relieved to discover that Mara was not a vegan.

After the appetizer, our beers were almost empty. Now was the time to decide whether or not we would have a second drink. Mara had proven herself to be an engaging conversationalist. She had worked for newspapers, had lived abroad, and had taken the job in the HR firm as a way to save money before launching a career as a freelancer. I was pleasantly surprised.

As we asked the waitress for another round, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Thinking it might be from Mara’s mom who was sitting for Luke, I excused myself quickly and took it out to read it. I was completely unprepared for what it said:

“Hi Mr Richards. So you decided to come see me at my new job? I’ll meet you in the men’s room in 5 min. – Kristine.”

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