Linda in the Darkroom

Linda was one of my first real sexual teachers.

I met her in college at Michigan State. Before you dismiss my story as sophomoric (literally), you should know that this isn't your typical college fuck story, if only for this reason: Although she was a fellow student, she was quite a bit older than me.

I was 21, and she was 38.

Linda and I had a marketing class together as well as a photography class, and I was immediately drawn to her intelligence and her humor. The physical attraction came later -- and frankly surprised us both.

My first impression of her was that she was fiercely self-conscious about being the oldest "kid" in all of her classes. She was going back to school following a very nasty divorce. Luckily they had no kids, but he was a very wealthy and influential man, and did everything he could to deny her what she thought was her fair settlement.

She struck me as someone who had always been quite street-smart, but was being forced by circumstances to be stronger than she ever bargained for. Now that I'm in her age bracket, I can say that her plight sounds familiar! Like can really suck sometimes!

She had been divorced for a year when I got to know her. Holly Hunter played this sort of character in a wonderful movie from 1998 called "Living Out Loud."

Actually, Holly Hunter physicially resembles my memories of Linda more than any other actress I can think of. Like Ms. Hunter, she was small and tightly wound. She was also very tentative and withholding. You'd have to look past a lot of trouble written across her face to see the lovely person underneath. Most people didn't take the trouble.

As I said, she was not particularly enjoying the whole "back to school" routine, including the discomfort of being surrounded by literally thousands of tempting but oblivious near-children, me included. She put off vibes that stated clearly that she was in no mood to make a misstep with a student -- any student -- young enough to be her son. But life doesn't always work as planned.

The first time I realized that there was a spark between us was when I was in the Student Union early one morning, getting ready for my first class. She would often join me, so we could review notes and just chat. This morning she entered the hall with a cloud over her head. Even from across the room I could tell she was not having a good day.

She looked as though she hadn't had a good night's sleep for several days, and although she never wore make-up to class, the toll that maturity can take on a face showed on her's more than usual that day.

Without thinking, I greeted her in a most uncharacteristic way. In other words, I said the right thing to a woman (I can be a dufus with women, which contributed to me being a bit of a late bloomer sexually). What I said may be one of the biggest gifts I've ever given anyone, actually.

I smiled warmly and blurted out, "Hello, beautiful." I expected nothing in return. I just wanted to cheer her up.

I succeeded. She looked at me with a stunned smile, and I knew then she hadn't considered herself beautiful in a really long time. I also realized that, by god, she was beautiful. And sexy!

Mind you, my experience with women up to that point had been quite limited. There was a girl that I had dated seriously for nearly a year, and with whom I had extremely vanilla sex. And there were a few girls before then who were equally conventional. but less inclined to "put out." I didn't blame them, and still don't.

I was younger than my years and not very willing to follow my instincts. I lived in my head, which, especially in my 20's, was a pretty neurotic neighborhood!

So what was a fella to do? I didn't have a mother thing, but I had been attracted before to older women. I think it was because they recognized that I wasn't into the typical college stuff. I flattered myself that I was an "outsider," but really I was just inept. Anyway, Linda became for me a project of sorts. I could tell she was lonely. So was I. Even I could figure out that she was someone I could have some wonderful fun with.

How's this for cliche? I suggested we rent a photographic darkroom, where we would print the photos we'd taken for the photo essay assignment we both had coming due.

Laughably, I told her the school's photo labs, the ones that were private (i.e., the doors locked), had the most openings on weekend nights -- an obvious lie. We booked the very last one available for that Friday night. Still, I was foolish enough to think this was a seduction that I alone knew was coming!

As was her habit, she dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair was short and boyish, worn in the same natural curls as always, but she was wearing make-up that night, which I took as an encouraging sign. Like her, I wore a sweatshirt and jeans -- the standard student uniform on an East Lansing winter night.

It was quite warm in the darkroom. Lit only by the red safety light, it smelled intensely of the chemicals used for developing prints and negatives. I stripped off my sweatshirt on the pretense of cooling off, and tossed it on the heap of our winter parkas that we'd made in one corner.

That left me in a tattered concert tee shirt. I was surprised that she didn't get more comfortable herself, and said as much. In the red light I couldn't be sure she was blushing, but she smiled and said something about not "corrupting college youth." She explained that she didn't have a shirt on underneath.

And with that she pulled the bottom edge of her sweatshirt down playfully over her hips, demonstrating how she was preserving her chastity. What it also demonstrated, as she stretched the fabric over her B-cup breasts, was that she was not wearing a bra.

The stiff buds of her nipples were clearly outlined and I couldn't help but look at them, and then up into her brown eyes. I can't recall who first dropped the pretense of disinterest, but we were next frantically tongue-kissing.

My hands swept along the smooth skin of her back, feeling the soft contours of her shoulder blades and lightly traveling the length of her spine. You have to understand. In my sad, limited teenaged sexual experiences, bra straps had become a symbol for the limits that my dates would put on our petting.

For some boys they were the finish line tape they would force their way past, on their way to even greater trophies. For me bra straps were more like police tape, effectively cordoning off the mysteries I was not allowed to uncover.

Now my hands explored every unfettered inch of her back, making her shiver, and causing her to pull me even closer, her pelvis grinding against my crotch. I pushed her against the wall and brought my hands forward to cup her breasts. I was still kneading and stroking her breasts when she pushed me back. But unlike most of my earlier experiences, she wasn't stopping me. She had freed her own hands to reach my belt and zipper.

Without interrupting our frantic kissing, she opened my jeans and slid them down. My cock snaked out around the elastic of my underwear, and now her hand was firmly wrapped around my cock, stroking it with the same insistence I was giving to her nipples. I was pinching them, grinding them, between my thumbs and fingers. She was moaning louder to the sensations of the twisting and pulling of her nipples, just as I was breathing heavily and rocking my pelvis into her tugging hand.

She drew out pre-cum from me, and her free hand swept the tip of it to feel my stickiness, and then to pinch my cock's head playfully. Man! She really knew the wonderful duality of pain and pleasure, as I was to learn in the weeks to come!

Now her free hand had released the head of my cock. It moved to cup my balls, her nails dragging lightly along my skin to make me groan with pleasure. Then she stepped back to kick off her shoes and wiggle out of her jeans. I watched her strip with dumbfounded singlemindedness, until I realized I too should get out of my clothes.

There was a circular swiveling lab stool in the corner, and I admired her ingenuity when she hopped up on it, steadying herself by leaning back on a heavy marble-top table. She smiled at me with a wonderful look of mischief. She was naked except for thick black knee-high socks, leaning back and resting on her elbows, and looking at me as though she wanted to eat me whole.

Speaking of eating, to her credit, she wisely stopped me from immediately sliding my cock into her. She instead guided my head and mouth to her thick bush of brown pubic hair. The chemicals in the air were no match for her sweet hot musk, which seemed to hang heavily between her smooth thighs like the honey coating her elaborate labial lips.

Her clit was the biggest I've ever encountered, and I could feel her fighting the urge to cry out as I licked and sipped it into my mouth, and even lightly bit it. She wanted me to bite harder, and as I did by degrees I could feel my chin becoming soaked in her juice.

I slipped my hands under her buttocks and forced more of my tongue along her slick vagina and hardening clit. She helped, by pressing my head harder into her, her fingers tangled in my hair.

Then she came. It was all I could do to steady the chair and hold her fast. She involuntarily clamped with her thighs around my head. This only pushed me deeper against her dripping pussy.

She released me and I stood up, my cock almost sore from wanting release. She wrapped her legs around my lower back and I was instantly deep inside her, lost in her warmth and wetness. I lingered motionless while she urgently kissed and licked her juices from my mouth and face. Then I began pumping into her, slowly at first, and then faster.

Her wetness was coating the front of my balls the way it had my chin, and with every push my balls slapped against her. The cum was inching up my cock, and I was approaching the point of no return. That's when she led my hands back to her breasts and asked me to squeeze them and pull her nipples. When this alone wasn't enough, she pleaded with me to bite down on one of them. "No," she said.

"Hard."

She wanted pain, and I focused on biting her right nipple without breaking the skin, which was a good way to take my mind off of my building orgasm. I didn't have to delay for long.

Working her nipple brought her to a second orgasm, one that jerked her body convulsively. Her voice now was a growl so deep and gutteral it seemed to rise on its own, speaking from somewhere deep in her gut.

I followed immediately with my own orgasm, exploding deep inside her. We held each other's sweaty bodies until the spasms faded, which was a wonderful eternity.