(Note: All characters are 18 or older)

Eli and I finished our Thursday afternoon tennis match sooner than usual. He was not feeling well, and it affected his movement. He dropped the first set 2-6 and conceded the second when he was down 0-4. I had hardly broken a sweat but still felt like rewarding myself with a dipped soft-serve cone at the local dairy bar.

I was served by Amber, a good-looking 18-year-old who gave her usual bright smile and flirtatious welcome, asking me when I was gonna try the “extra-special treat I whip up for my favorite customers,” batting her eyebrows as she said it. She was of medium height, well-endowed, with deep green eyes and long “dirty blonde” hair around attractive facial features that gave her a promising hungry look.

My father would have described Amber as an “enticing little dish,” I wondered, and immediately felt a stab of panic — I was starting to quote my father — Next I’d begin thinking at my age level, and Amber would look hopelessly young for a guy over 30. I had another jolt realizing I had been subconsciously regarding this enticing little dish as off-limits.

“A special treat sounds good,” I told her, trying to affect an artful smile. “Should I call ahead to order so you can have it ready?”

Amber’s face beamed a delighted expression. It was the first time her several flirtations had resulted in more than a sly smile and quick brush-off.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll need at least a couple hours to prepare the necessary ingredients.” She winked and left the service window to get my cone. When she handed it to me, I saw it was at least an extra-large size, even though I only ordered a medium, and had been artistically altered, the soft-serve swirls rounded and sculpted on top. It resembled a big erection and had a large, bright red maraschino cherry on top. I had to laugh.

“Just a sample,” she said, with a sultry smile. “Cherries are supposed to be only for sundaes, but most guys seem to like them any day of the week, along with popped cherries.” She gave a knowing look, eyebrows raised. “Here’s your napkin,” she added. “You may have lost the last one I gave you. Keep it handy to catch any drippings.” She winked again. The napkin had a phone number written on it in large black letters.

On the drive home, I was happy knowing that I still “had it.” Quoting my father did not mean I had reached his venerable, lusterless, and lustless status. I still appealed to enticing little dishes. Who knows, I wondered, stashing away Amber’s inscribed napkin in the zipper pocket of my tennis racket cover — that “special treat” may yet be in the cards

Realistically, however, new affairs take a lot of energy and tend to interfere with other courses in life. Would the “it” I still had ever be put to use again? After all, I was already heavily involved in a polyamorous group with my girlfriend and two close friends, Eli and Rachel. Anyway, when it came down to it, there might not be any more to Amber than flirtatious banter.

I pulled up to the house and backed the van into the garage. Lila’s truck was parked by the door. Next to it was a small sedan with a cracked windshield and some dents in the body. I did not have time to get too curious, as the door opened and a teenager about Amber’s age came bounding out. He was carrying a case used for musical instruments.

“Hi,” he called, opening the door of the beat-up wreck, throwing the case inside, and jumping behind the wheel. The motor roared to life, sounding pretty ballsy compared to the dismal appearance of the vehicle. He quickly turned around and almost did a wheelie going down the driveway, leaving behind a contrail of spraying gravel.

“Hi sweetheart,” Lila called from the door.

“Who was that?” I asked, before kissing her puckered lips.

“Joshua Hardy,” she answered. “A really gifted kid. Plays mandolin, guitar, and piano, and now he’s taking up the clarinet. That’s not coming so easy for him, so I’m helping.”

“You know clarinet?” I asked.

“I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t tried to play,” Lila said, taking my arm and walking me into the house. “Wind instruments aren’t my specialty, but I can still coach him where he’s having problems.”

“As a tutor?” I asked. “Any money in it?”

“Just satisfaction.” She shrugged. “It’s only an hour here and there after school.”

That was my Lila. Tall, shapely, graceful, brunette, gorgeous and generous to a fault.

I went up to Shower, and by the time I got through she had dinner on the table. Like our friend Rachel, she favored vegetarian, seasoned to delicacy status. She had converted me during the time we were together. Between Lila’s cooking and Rachel’s, just the wondered of steak made me nauseous these days.

Lila’s new volunteer enterprise was the subject of some humor when we joined Eli and Rachel over the weekend. It was somewhat ribald, as we had a history with these people.

“You sell yourself short when you say horns aren’t your specialty,” Eli quipped. “Dan and I can vouch that you know your way around them. I’ve rarely had my horn played so well. You blow me over.” Lila laughed while showing a little color.

“You Horny guys have just one thing on your minds,” said Rachel. “And lay off Lila. You guys should be happy that she tutors your horns without a charge. If she has enough energy left to help out a high school kid too, more power to her.”

“I’m all in favor of Free tutelage for Horny students,” Eli conceded. “I too do my best to help them.”

“I know you do, which is why I’m glad I have Danny around to fill in the gap that you sometimes feel too exhausted to take care of,” Rachel said, sitting down next to me, taking my arm and rubbing a generous-sized boob into my chest as she planted a sloppy kiss on my lips. Rachel was shorter than Lila but packed a lot of natural attributes into a smaller frame. She was attractive and enjoyed using what she had. I considered myself fortunate that Eli shared her with me.

Of course, it worked both methods. Lila was not promiscuous. She rarely even looked at another man. But she had long been drawn to my friend, Eli and it was a rare weekend when Lila did not distribute her favors with him. I did not like thinking of my gorgeous woman bedding down with another guy, even an old friend, but Rachel eased my anxiety. Lila and I had been easy prey for our polyamorous friends. Anyway, that was the lifestyle we had orchestrated after several years together. Performances were often side by side in the same king bed.

And Joshua Hardy was about to put on an epic production of his own.

Joshua came over again Tuesday afternoon. The raucous sound of clarinet miss-notes filled the parlor and drove me out of my adjacent home office. I went to the sunroom at the other end of the house to make calls and compose articles on the laptop. The instrument sounds carried even there but it was not overwhelming. Finally, there was a long period of silence.

“How’s he doing?” I asked Lila after Joshua had left.

“Oh, okay, I guess. We seem to be spending a lot of time talking about his other problems as well.”

“What are those?”

“He’s a nice kid, also good-looking and athletic. It seems like he should have it made, but he’s very insecure. He puts on a strong facade, but then today he started venting and nearly broke down in tears.”

Joshua’s problems included parents who were not supportive of his potential musical career and a basketball coach who benched him for missing practice due to clarinet studies. However, the main source of his angst, Lila related, was a girlfriend who recently broke up with him. I felt bad for the kid, but not too bad. Breakups were part of growing up. Countless others had it a lot worse, I told Lila.

She agreed but wanted to comfort the boy and help him manage his feelings, she said, even drafting me to offer “a guy’s perspective” when Josh came over again Thursday. We talked for twenty minutes or so during a break in his clarinet lesson. At first, this reinforced my conviction that I lacked nurturing skills. I did most of the talking while the kid did the moping and sulking.

“You know, at times we just have to man up,” I advised him. “There are a lot of girls out there. If you lose one you like, believe me, there are a dozen others ready to go with a good-looking dude like you.” I threw in some sports language metaphors, figuring that might get through to the kid. “The situation just needs some scouting out, and then some good moves, keeping your eyes on the ball. The prize will follow.”

“I find it hard to talk to girls,” he confided. “How did you score with Ms. D’Ambrosia?” he asked. “She’s a real Hot lady,” he added.

Well, he was right about that, although not necessarily a genius to recognize the fact, as probably 95 percent of the male population was on to it as well. But I saw no harm in advising a lad who evidently respected my accomplishment.

“Granted, I aced this one,” I said modestly. “But it’s all in the swing, and it applies in every game. You start by talking to the girl respectfully. Actually, let her do most of the talking, to find out what her interests are. Then you decide if you have enough in common to pursue a relationship at all. If so, you just zero in on the areas where you’re most in sync. The rest just falls into place. If you keep your eye on the ball and your swing is strong — and there’s sufficient chemistry, to mix a metaphor — you’ll get a good reaction, make points and get the win.”

He seemed to ponder that. “Do you play or sing too? Did that help you with Ms. D’Ambrosia?”

“I play a little guitar once in a while but have nowhere near the talent she has,” I replied, deciding to expand my advice to include a little history. “This is where the art of conversation comes in. Lila and I talked and found we have the same tastes in music, especially artists from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, which are Lila’s passions. That turned out to be a good opening serve, and was also a key to my success with her.”

Joshua was nodding. He seemed to be seriously considering my advice. Maybe he was not so dumb after all, I reflected.

“How did you find out about that old music? You’re not that old, are you?”

That he would even have to ask pissed me a little, but I tried to answer politely. “Hardly, Josh, I’m sure you know what the internet is. I found websites where you can hear good music from the old days and look up details about the singers, composers and all that. That’s where I got most of my knowledge from.”

He nodded again, then looked at his watch. “Thank you very much,” he said. He went into the parlor, where Lila had confined herself, to say goodbye to her. Not only clever but also a polite kid, I wondered.

“How are the lessons going with the musical prodigy?” Eli asked Lila at our weekend rendezvous.

“I think they’ll go better from now on,” she replied. “He has some personal problems, stemming from a girl’s rejection, but Danny had a man-to-man talk with him.”

“Oh, so you reached back into your college psych courses,” Eli commented to me. “Maybe I should bring you on as a consultant in my own efforts to heal the emotional scars of the scholastically challenged.”

“You leave him alone,” Rachel told Eli, taking my arm. “I need Danny’s skills to help me overcome my challenges. I can’t have you exhausting his talents tutoring co-ed bimbos.”

“Well, I could assign him just the males while I help their girlfriends,” Eli countered, to general laughter.

Josh’s next session with Lila seemed to have even less clarinet in it than the previous ones. In anticipation of an audio assault, I had moved out of my office to the sunroom, but there was little noise coming from the parlor. On his way out, Joshua stopped and thanked me for my advice the previous week.

“Graduation is getting closer, and I’m looking at different work possibilities,” he said. “Could I ask you about your job, about journalism?”

I told him I liked it primarily because of the variety. Instead of the same boring tasks in a confined workplace, things were all the time changing. There were new personalities, new issues, and a lot of flexibility in work hours.

“What are the busiest times of the week?” he asked.

“Well, it differs by the publication. Mine is a weekly paper. For me, early-week is the busiest. I go in at 8 a.m. Monday and rarely get back home before 7 p.m. because we’re getting the paper ready to print the next day, so I’m editing, gathering articles, setting up pages, all that. Tuesday is production day, and I usually go in even earlier and wrap things up by 3. I take a lot of personal time mid-week. Wednesday and Thursday, are my lightest days. I play some tennis with a friend but there might be events to cover at night. On weekends there are often things happening. So it varies.”

Josh seemed to be listening carefully to all this. Finally, he smiled, giving me a fist bump and a thumbs-up sign as he went out the door.

“Did it go okay?” I asked Lila over dinner.

“Yes, he seems to be less stressed out. Whatever you’re telling him seems to be helping,” she said, smiling and patting my wrist. “He is an amazing boy. For somebody so young, he’s very well versed in the old music and singers we like. We got talking about it. He even told me a few things I didn’t know. He’s like a walking encyclopedia. The only trouble is we spent most of the time talking about that instead of clarinet.”

Odd, I wondered, Joshua had not seemed to know much about that era when we talked about it the week before.

“Also, I’m getting the feeling he’s developed a little crush on me,” Lila said, smiling. “Cute,” she added.

Later in the week, coming home after tennis, I saw Joshua’s wreck parked by the door. I backed into the garage and went into the house. Clarinet sounds were coming from the parlor. I went upstairs to Shower, and sat on the bed to strip off my sweaty clothes when the music stopped.

“What is it, Josh?” I heard Lila ask in a sympathetic tone. I looked through what I sometimes wondered of as the “voyeur vent,” a floor-level opening I had cut to allow heat from the parlor woodstove to circulate upstairs, and could see that the boy had put his instrument apart and was looking at Lila.

“It’s no good. I can’t concentrate. I’m too zoned in on you,” he said.

“Now, we’ve been through this, Josh,” she responded, almost tenderly. She took one of his hands. “I really like you, but we can’t get involved. You’ll find another girlfriend, someone your age.”

“I don’t want someone my age,” he said. “They’re all so… so bubble-headed. None of them has your class, your appreciation for the good old music. I’m in Love with you, Lila.”

That admission in itself was enough to hold my attention. I also noted that he was now addressing her by her first name, no longer as “Ms. D’Ambrosia.”

Lila stroked his brow, pushing a lock of long blonde hair back into place.

“You’re a good-looking guy, Josh,” she said. “I can’t help but notice that. But you’re also nine years younger than me, I’m your teacher and I’m in a relationship.” She shook her head. “It would be just totally inappropriate.”

They did not say anything more for a moment. Then he asked, “What time does Mr. Dan get home?” The sound of the clarinet had masked my arrival.

“Very soon,” Lila responded.

“I should go,” he said. “Can I come next Monday instead of Tuesday?”

An alarm bell went off. The little bastard knew my schedule, courtesy of my own big mouth. He probably figured if I did not get home until 7 or 8, he would have time for an afternoon/evening seduction, to a theme song of good old folk music and modern bad clarinet. I felt like shouting “Screw off” to him through the vent, but instantly wondered better of it. To Lila, I would come off as a voyeur. And she probably would not appreciate me trying to dominate the situation. She was able to handle it, I wondered.

“Yes, that will be alright,” Lila told him. “But I want you to practice the steps we discussed earlier, and also… to concentrate less on me and more on finding someone your own age.” She stroked his cheek, looking at him tenderly. “That shouldn’t be very difficult for you, beautiful boy.”

I was betting that the gorgeous boy’s ugly cock was rock hard. Mine would have been in that situation, but in my college days, my ego was never massaged by such a gorgeous teacher. Usually, they were scowling and yelling at me, and they all seemed to be ugly or nearing retirement.

Lila escorted Josh to the door, and I went into the bathroom to take my Shower. As the water ran over me I heard her call my name at the bathroom door and acknowledged my presence.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she called through the door. When I came out, still moist after toweling off, she was seated on the bed. “Nice view,” she said, smiling as she appraised my naked body. “Did you hear any of the conversation with Josh?”

“Yeah, the music stopped as soon as I got up here,” I replied. “Sounds like Josh has more than clarinet on his mind.”

“He’s developed this fixation on me,” she acknowledged.

“If you don’t want him to get even more fixated, you should stop caressing his cheek and calling him a beautiful young male,” I advised. “At his age, those hormones don’t need any more help at rampaging.”

She smiled. “I guess you peeped a little as well as listened.” I started to say something, but she waved it off. “I don’t mean to encourage him. He’s developed a real crush on me. I don’t know how to handle it.”

“Your advice to him was fine,” I said. “I’m not sure he’ll listen, but… Actually, I’m part to blame for this.” She looked at me curiously. “In advising Josh on how to score with a female, I mentioned the importance of talking and finding common interests. I used you and me as an example and inadvertently primed him on your tastes. I bet he didn’t know jack about late 20th Century folk music until I mentioned you liked it and it helped us get closer. Then I virtually told him how to look up singers and songs on the net. On top of that, the sneaky little bastard wormed my schedule out of me. He wants to change his day with you to Monday because he knows that’s my late day at the office.”

Lila laughed. “You are good at disseminating information, aren’t you.”

Josh’s fixation and his intelligence-gathering abilities became a topic of discussion at our weekend social. Eli, following a few jabs of sardonic humor, warned Lila to be careful, as there was “no telling what an obsessed teenage boy is capable of.”

“Joshua is indeed a very strong boy, also very talented and intelligent, but I don’t consider him a threat,” Lila said, looking at Eli, then at me.”And while he is indeed good-looking, I don’t intend to offer him anything besides music education and sympathy.”

“That would be wise,” Eli said. “It’s not good policy to shag one of your students.”

I choked on my beer, and Rachel exclaimed, “You’re one to talk. Some of the girls you ‘instruct’ at the university are only a year or two older than Joshua.”

“Just to provide another perspective here,” I said, once I stopped laughing, “Despite Eli’s instructional record, he’s right that there’s a big difference in the public eye between a high school teacher screwing one of her students and a college instructor shagging a university student. College is considered an Adult environment, with more open standards of conduct. In high school, even if the kid is of legal age and not jailbait, the perception would be an Adult is preying on a child. If it becomes known there would be serious consequences with the PTA and school board. I’ve seen it, written articles about it.”

“Same old double standard,” Rachel offered. “Men are expected to be on the prowl, rub elbows and wink over their scores, but women are seductive sluts and bitches if they do the same.”

“Well, there’s some truth to that, although the consequences are often different for the genders,” I said. “A male teacher at a public school would be crucified in court and given an orange shirt to wear if he even fondled the boobs of an adolescent girl, let alone nailed her. A woman teacher who beds one of the boys may find her job in jeopardy, but would probably avoid a tour of the court system. Usually, everyone just figures boys will be boys, warn the lady teacher to be more careful and look the other way.”