Coe Review

them my ID. I haven't played that game in a while. I look across the pool at
Jennifer and she really is twenty-nine. I look at Ryan and he really is forty.
I look at my nineteen-year-old and there's no doubt about it. She really is
nineteen.
"Do you do most of your babysitting at Steve's house or his wife's?"
"Mostly here," she says. "Why?"
"Then you know where the guest bedroom is."
She holds my eyes, then smiles her straight-toothed smile.
"It's right over there," she says and tilts her head toward the house, her
hair falling, lustrous, smelling fresh.
"Heightened moments," I say.
I follow her inside, up the stairs, down the hall, into the guest bedroom.
There's a flowered bedspread and pillows with ruffles and I wonder what's
gotten into my college friend Steve. Maybe he's making enough money to
hire interior decorators for every room. My nineteen-year-old doesn't wait
for me to make some smooth move. She has her shirt off, her shorts off,
and she's taking off her bathing suit.
"I assume you have a condom," she says.
"I'm always prepared."
From outside the closed, draped windows, I can hear the noise of the
party. I wonder if anyone will miss me.
I get undressed, put on the rubber, move to the kid on the bed, move
my mouth down her neck, over her breasts, circling her nipples. Her body
is perfect, not an ounce of fat, not a centimeter of age. I open her up with
my fingers, put my cock in and fuck her and fuck her and listen to the young
sounds she makes. I'm a marathon fucker. My power comes from showing
any woman that I can go longer and harder than she can. It's another game
I like to play.
"Not bad for an old man," I say.
"I told you. I like old men."
"I'm not old."
"You're not young."
"Am I fucking you old?"
"You're fucking me good, but you're not young."
I start fucking her harder, fucking her to win. Maybe she's playing her
own game. Fucking with me like whipping some horse to go faster. Outside
I hear applause and then quiet and then I hear Steve's voice. He's thanking
everyone for coming to his party. He's telling everyone that forty is a
milestone age, an age where you have to take stock of your life because the
decisions you make now will last the rest of your life, how you have to realize
that the spring in your step is not quite as springy.
Adam Berlin 73