Back in the car, J.C. said, “He was cute!” I just smiled and said nothing. 

“And he wasn’t gonna let you get away!” J.C. added.

Again, I just smiled.  I replayed the night in my head for the entire ride to J.C.’s place.  I was hooked.  When we pulled up to the Cunningham’s house, I watched to make sure J.C. got inside all right.  Then I sped away.  I decided to call Trey the moment I got home.

The next few weeks of school went by pretty fast.  I talked to Trey only a couple of times, but I generally had tons of homework.  Soon I was home again for Christmas vacation.  I called Trey, and he asked if I could meet him downtown for lunch.  “Sure, I’d like that.” I answered.  I met him at the Navy Recruiting Office on the fifth floor of the Federal Building promptly at noon.  We walked to a little restaurant about a block away.  The place supposedly offered good ‘home cooking’.  I ordered grilled chicken, Trey ordered liver and onions.  “Yuck!”, I thought.  “I hate liver – always have.”  I could barely sit across from him and watch him devour it.  I couldn’t even stand the smell of it.  And I damn sure was never going to cook it, let alone try to force my children to eat it the way my mother had done me.  The whole liver issue would turn out to be a source of conflict later in our relationship, but I couldn’t have known that at the time.

We talked, but I could feel my nose turning up at the site of the liver. “Hey, Candi, ” he said, “what if I told you that I was only eighteen years old.”  Oops!  Was he assuming that I was older than I was?  “Would you be mad?”

“Why would I be mad?  I’m nineteen.”

“For real, you’re nineteen?”

 ”Why would I lie?”

“Man, nineteen”, he sighed.

“Problem?”

“No, I was just testing to see if you’d tell the truth.  I thought you’d told me you were twenty-one at the club.  I’m actually twenty-two.”

Right about now, I’m thinking, “Are we going to start with stupid games already? So what you’re twenty-two or you’re eighteen. What difference does it make?”  But instead, I say, “I was in a CLUB. I was drinking.  Did you expect me to announce that I was under-age?”

The rest of the meal went smoothly. He talked about the ports he’d visited on the ship. I talked about school and my ensuing degree in engineering.  I saw him checking out my legs under the table. I knew I should have worn pants.  He helped me on with my coat and we started back to the Federal Building.

“Thanks for lunch”, I said as we walked back.

“What are you doing later?”

“I don’t really have any plans.”

“Why don’t you stop by here after work and we can go somewhere?”

“Sure, what time do you get off?”

“Five.  You can park your car behind the building, and ride with me.  It should be safe there.”  Was he kidding?  My car was ten years old.  I drove a 1972 Plymouth Duster.  To top it off, it was the color of baby poop.  No one was going to take that car even if I offered it.

“Okay, I’ll come back at five.

 As it turned out, the somewhere he took me was to his friend Keith’s place.  Shortly thereafter, Keith disappeared.  Here I was, alone with a man I’d met in a nightclub, talked to on the phone about three times, and had lunch with once.  I knew what was coming, and decided to go along with it.  I wasn’t exactly a virgin, and I figured I might as well see what he was about.  My ex-boyfriend Tim was great in bed. He just didn’t have it going on in the education and career department. Could Trey measure up?