Lovely to Meet Me

Zoe knows. She's always known. That's not the same as stopping. Contains: age gap (both adults), explicit content, and one woman's fairly clear-eyed accounting of what she's doing and why. No redemption arc. Just breakfast.

---

I know what this is.

I knew at Cass's birthday thing when he asked what I was reading and actually listened to the answer. I knew when he laughed at something I said, not because it was his turn to laugh but because it was funny. I knew when he said he had to leave and then didn't leave for another hour.

I know what my therapist would say. She wouldn't need to say it. She'd just wait. One of her very professional eyebrows. Let the silence do the work.

My father left when I was twelve. His name is Ian. He lives in Bishop's Stortford with his other family and sends me a Waterstones voucher every Christmas, which tells you everything about how well he knows me, given that I work in a bookshop and haven't paid for a book in three years.

---

Richard is fifty-three. An architect. Runs his own firm. Divorced four years ago, amicably, he says, which I've come to believe is actually true, which is somehow more unsettling than if it weren't.

I met him at Cass's birthday thing in Cambridge. One of those parties where the flat is too small and someone's made a vat of something red and everyone is either getting with someone or loudly not trying to. Richard was by the window looking like he'd arrived at the wrong address and was too polite to leave. Which, as it turned out, was exactly what had happened. Cass's mum had sent him with a card. He'd been guilted into staying for one drink. Now here he was at eleven on a Friday, holding a bottle of Peroni and doing the polite-nodding face at someone explaining their dissertation.

I went over to rescue him. That's what I told myself.

We talked for two hours. He asked questions and listened to the answers and laughed when something was actually funny. His sleeves were rolled up. He had forearms. Nice forearms, not covered in tattoos.

I'm aware of how that sounds. I'm not judging but am at the same time.

When he left he said it had been lovely to meet me. Not great to chat or good to meet you, but *lovely to meet me*. Like he meant it specifically. Like I was a thing worth meaning.

I went home and thought about him all week, including the weekend.

Then Cass texted asking if she could give Richard my number because he'd asked and she wanted to check first. She was typing with the energy of someone who knew exactly what was going to happen and was already planning what to say at the wedding.

I said yes. Obviously, duh.

---

We had dinner three weeks later. A fancy adult restaurant, not a bar or Nandos. He'd booked it. He'd found somewhere good and made a reservation like a grown adult.

I wore a nice dress. I don't know why I'm noting that except it felt significant at the time.

He was already there when I arrived. Stood up when he saw me come in. I don't know when men stopped doing that but they did and I'd forgotten what it felt like.

Over dinner he asked about my parents. Not in a therapist way, but in the way people do when they're getting to know you. Casual. And I gave him the casual answer, mum's in Lincoln, dad's not really in the picture, and he nodded and didn't push it and we moved on.

Which was somehow worse than if he'd pushed it.

We talked for three hours. Split a bottle of wine and then another. He paid without making it into a thing. We walked out into the cold and he asked if I wanted to get an uber back to his.

Not in a grabby way. More like the question was obvious and he was just confirming the logistics.

I said yes. No pause. Yes.

---

He lived in central Cambridge. A flat that was clean and properly furnished and smelled of coffee and something like cedar. Bookshelves with real books on them. A snazzy kitchen. A bed that was clearly a grown-up's bed with headboard and a set of matching lamps.

I stood in his living room while he poured whisky and handed me a glass and I thought: I am twenty-five years old and I am in a fifty-three-year-old man's flat and I know exactly what my therapist would say.

He sat next to me on the sofa. Not too close, not performatively not-too-close. Normal. Not creepy.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Er yeah. Why?"

"You sort of went quiet."

"Oh no, no, I'm fine."

He looked at me. Not examining. "You don't have to be here if you don't want to be."

"Oh, I want to be here."

"That's good then."

He kissed me. Unhurried. Like he wasn't trying to prove anything. Like we had time.

That was the thing about Richard. He kissed like someone who'd stopped rushing.

I'd been with men my age. Men who kissed with this slightly desperate quality, like the whole thing might be taken away from them any second. Richard kissed like it wasn't going anywhere. Like he was actually interested in the kissing rather than what came after.

I found this briefly maddening and then, once I adjusted to it, extraordinarily fucking good.

His hand moved to my face. Tilted it slightly. Kissed me differently. Slower.

"Bedroom?"

"Yes, yes bedroom."

---

This is where I'm supposed to describe what happened next in the way these things get described. I'll get there. Give me a moment.

There's a particular thing that happens when someone who knows what they're doing pays proper attention to you. It's not about technique, though technique matters. It's about being treated like you're interesting. Like your specific responses are the point rather than just confirmation that things are going in the right direction.

I had not, before Richard, experienced this.

---

He undressed me slowly. Not fumbling, steady, like he'd done it many times and wasn't making it into a moment. Zip at the back of the dress. Bra clasp, one handed, matter of fact. Experience.

He stood back and looked at me.

"You're extraordinary."

"Um, you don't have to say that."

"I know I don't."

He moved over me. His mouth on my neck. Fuck it felt good. Then his mouth on my breast, tongue circling.

"Good?"

"...Oh gosh, don't stop."

His hand moved down my stomach. Not rushing toward anything. Just tracing. I was already wet. Had been the whole evening, if I'm honest, which I might as well be since I'm telling you all this anyway.

His fingers found me. Slipped through.

He worked me really slowly. With actual patience, not performed patience. I moved under his hand. My hips rising to meet him. He adjusted without being asked.

I've had to give directions before. Gentle redirections delivered with a smile so no one feels bad. Richard didn't need redirecting.

He pushed his fingers inside me. Slowly. The stretch made me gasp. He stopped.

"Okay?"

"More than okay."

He moved them. Found an angle. His mouth still on my breast. His fingers on my clit. The particular combination of all of it was, honestly, a lot.

I came faster than I meant to. Tried to slow it down and couldn't. Grabbed the sheet and went rigid.

He kept going. Eased me through it.

After, I lay there. He was still looking at my face. I felt shy, embarrassed. I don't know why.

"You went somewhere."

"Yeah, sorry."

"Don't apologise." He kissed my temple. "It was the right thing to do."

I mean. Come on.

---

We got there without the fumbling transaction of it. He'd arranged things so it felt natural. Which it shouldn't, because nothing about this is natural, but.

He moved slowly. That same unhurried quality. I kept waiting for him to lose it, to get frantic the way men do, and he didn't. He just kept moving. Watching my face.

"Tell me if it's good or not good."

"Oh, believe me it's good."

"Yeah?"

"Richard. Please, it's very good."

I pushed him onto his back. Climbed on top. His hands settled on my hips, not steering. Let me find the angle. Let me set the pace.

I looked down at him. He was looking up at me like I was doing something remarkable.

I know what my therapist would say. I know that this is a man twenty-eight years older than me and that his daughter is three years younger than me and that somewhere in the wiring of my brain this whole situation is answering a question written somewhere.

I know all of that.

But his hands are warm on my hips and he's looking at me like I'm worth looking at and I'm moving over him and I'm going to come again in approximately two minutes and it's going to be very good.

Soooo. I moved faster. His pupils open wide. His hands tightened.

"Zoe..."

"Fuck yes, but don't talk...not now."

"I was just saying your name."

"I know. Don't."

He didn't. His hips pushed up. We found a rhythm. I could see his face, his chest, the grey in his hair against the pillow. He looked like himself. Like someone who knew who he was.

I came. He followed about a minute later, which was a good minute, and afterwards we lay there not talking, which was also good.

---

He made toast in the morning. French toast. The right kind of marmalade. He was wearing a fitted grey t-shirt and yesterday's trousers and he looked good. Comfortable. Like mornings were not a problem for him.

I sat at his kitchen table feeling twenty-five, which I am, but in the slightly too-aware way.

"You can stay."

"Oh yeah, but I've got work."

"You said you're not in until eleven."

He'd remembered that. From dinner. I'd mentioned it once.

"I still need to go home. Get changed."

He nodded. Didn't push it. Put a mug of coffee in front of me.

We sat for a bit. Outside someone was arguing with a delivery driver. Normal Cambridge morning.

"This was nice," I said.

"Yes."

"I'm not looking for anything. I mean I don't know what I'm. I just want to say that I'm not--"

"Zoe."

"What?"

"It was a nice evening. Have your coffee."

Right. I had my coffee.

At the door he kissed me. His hand at the back of my head.

"I'd like to see you again."

"Yeah, nice. Okay for sure."

I walked down to the street. Stood there for a moment in the grey morning.

Texted Cass: *okay fine you were right.*

Her reply came back in thirty seconds: *OBVIOUSLY I WAS RIGHT.*

I put my phone away.

Here's the thing about knowing what something is. It doesn't stop it from being something. You can have full insight into your own psychology, the whole map laid out in front of you, your therapist's eyebrow practically tattooed on your frontal lobe, and it doesn't change the fundamental fact that someone made you toast and remembered how you take your coffee and looked at you like you were worth looking at.

My father is in Bishop's Stortford with his other family and his Waterstones vouchers.

Richard is in Cambridge with his French press and his marmalade.

I know which one I'd rather have breakfast with.

That's probably the point.

I walked home.