Rock of Ages by Howard Owen Page A

Phil’s hangouts when he took her hand in his and she realized that the hard piece of metal pinching her finger was his class ring from high school. She picked it up and looked at it as if admiring its workmanship.
    â€œClass of ’68,” he said, looking her in the eye, amused. “I’m two years younger than you. Cradle-robber.”
    â€œHow … How do you know how old I am?” She realized she was blushing and hoped the lights were low enough to mask it. “And what’s it to you?”
    â€œAsked around,” he said, grinning. “After all, I need to know these things. I wouldn’t want to do something to get a senior citizen overexcited. Not sure your poor old body could handle a lot of vigorous activity.”
    She’d had a couple of drinks already, and she supposed that loosened her tongue a little.
    She told him that she was sure she could handle any vigor he might be willing to throw her decrepit way.
    â€œI might take you up on that,” he’d said, playing along, moving his head closer to hers across the table and lowering his voice. “You’d have to sign a release form, of course. Wouldn’t want you on my conscience.”
    She took her shoe off under the table and ran her foot up his pants leg.
    â€œYou’re not just offering an old lady a mercy fuck, are you?” she asked, looking him right in the eye, smiling just enough to indicate that she might be kidding, or she might not.
    She didn’t know what made her say that. She didn’t want Phil Macomb to be some kind of one-night wonder. She’d had three of those in the last year.
    She’d heard the joke about a guy’s perfect date being one that turns into a pizza after sex. She was too kind to tell any of the men with whom she’d slept that it could work both ways, that she had a strong urge to call Domino’s after they had fully explored the only subject in which they both were interested.
    But Phil Macomb wasn’t like that. She thought he might be a keeper.
    He looked stunned, for a couple of seconds, and then he burst out laughing, drawing the attention of people at the tables around them. Most of what he did, Georgia was learning, he did loud.
    â€œOld lady,” he said, lowering his voice again, “if that were to happen, the one showing the mercy would be you. It would be one of the most merciful things anybody had ever done for me.”
    â€œCall me Mother Teresa,” Georgia said, never taking her eyes off his.
    She had to concede that it might have been nothing more than pheromones that first drew her to him, although she had come, by the third date, to appreciate his sense of humor, his ability to listen, and what appeared to be a basic decency.
    Nevertheless, there was the sex. She didn’t remember having a better night in bed, and he swore she was the best he’d ever had. “‘Had?’” she’d said. “You make me sound like dinner.” But she was secretly pleased. She hoped he wasn’t just being kind.
    And, after two hours of pleasantly wearing each other out, they found that neither wanted the other to turn into fast food. They talked about things that Georgia had never talked about with Jeff, and certainly not with Mark. In the weeks to come, they explored each other like children with new toys, playing sexual games they would never reveal to anyone else.
    By April, she was more or less living in the old farmhouse he’d fixed up. She sometimes missed the comforts of solitary life, being able to do exactly what she wanted, dress how she wanted, eat what she wanted, but by May she wouldn’t have gone back for anything and accepted that some people are supposed to live with other people.
    They were married that June, in a very simple ceremony attended only by a few close friends. Justin came up from Atlanta, where he was in the first year of a master’s program in sociology that he still