A Eulogy for Cheryl

The two men sat in easy chairs in the library on that cold autumn afternoon. Each had a snifter of Remy Martin VSOP brandy in hand. They casually sipped it, gazing out beyond the patio to the lawn and a small lake. In the distance were oaks to whose limbs clung the last dying leaves of the season. It was a time for quiet reflection; for remembrance of things past.

John Ashley and his guest Ken Mason had much in common. Both men were in their early sixties, with thinning gray hair and wrinkles on their face to prove it.

Just two old friends. They had met long ago, fresh out of college, teachers at East Side High School in nearby St. Louis. Ken taught science; John had joined the faculty a year later as a math teacher. They shared the challenge of teaching in public school; it forged a bond between the two young men. After his second year, Ken had left East Side High to go to graduate school to study chemistry. John had stayed the course; he had recently retired after thirty-five years in the classroom.

As the decades went by, they kept in touch, exchanging Christmas cards and the occasional e-mail. They were friends but not close; two men whose best years were behind them. Whose only tie was that of long ago experiences.

"It's been, what, fifteen years since you visited St. Louis?" remarked John.

"That sounds about right," replied Ken. "Brenda and the kids and I stayed here with you and Andrea and your girls. We were on our way to the Grand Canyon. You took us to a Cardinals game."

"So what brings you back?'

"Brenda's doing a week-long pottery class up in Minneapolis. I had time on my hands, so I thought I'd take a road trip. I've always liked St. Louis."

"But is there more to it than that?" John was a man perceptive of others' moods.

Ken nodded, and took a quick sip of brandy. "Uh huh. Something has happened. Nothing earth-shattering. But you're the one I wanted to talk to. So here I am."

"I sense you have a story to tell," smiled John.

"Yes. A story I've never told anyone. Would you like to hear it?"

"Why not? We've good brandy and it's a pleasant afternoon. Andrea won't be home for another two hours. So whatever you want to tell me, I'll listen."

A mantel clock quietly ticked away the seconds. Finally, taking a deep breath, Ken began to speak. "My first year at East Side, there was a student named Cheryl Denson. She was a senior. She wasn't one of the elites; not a cheerleader or class president or anything like that. Just an ordinary girl. Hundreds of them in every high school. She had short dark hair and wore glasses. Had a slightly husky voice."

"So what about her?"

"That first school term, this would have been about 1977, I often stayed after school to prep my science labs for the next day. Some of my students, who were sophomores, would wander by and we'd talk for a while. Many of them, for various reasons, weren't eager to go home."

"Anyway, Cheryl was assisting Mrs. Weyland's biology class next door. She'd come over. Soon she was part of our little after-school group. As time went on, Cheryl and I began to talk about ... well, personal things when the others left. I could tell was flirting with me. And yet I didn't put an end to it, you see."

"The thing is, John, I was new in town. I had no friends, and lived by myself in an apartment. I was so lonely; Cheryl picked up on it. She suggested that maybe she'd come visit me some time. I knew I should tell her no; but somehow I could not."

"So one Friday night in late October, there came a knock on the back door to my apartment. Of course it was Cheryl. She'd been on a date with some guy. She'd told him she was spending the night with a girlfriend, and asked him drop her off near my apartment."

"Cheryl had just turned eighteen, so she'd had a few beers. She and her date had gone to a bar or club where there was lots of smoking, which clung to her clothing. We talked for a while; I got Cokes for us to drink. Then she said she'd like to take a quick shower to get the smoke out of her hair and freshen up."

John shook his head. "But you knew what was going on, didn't you, Ken?"

"Of course. A pretty young student, late at night in the apartment of a teacher only a few years older than she? Cheryl was of age, but students were still off limits to the teachers. So I knew I was risking everything. I was scared to death when she came out of the bathroom, just a towel around her. I think I was trembling. But it didn't matter; by then it was too late. It had been too late the minute I opened the door for Cheryl."

Ken took another long sip of brandy. His voice became lower as he relived that moment. "She came to me, dropped the towel, and put her arms around me. She smelled so good. Cheryl didn't have a spectacular body; her breasts, as I recall, were average. But she had the loveliest pink nipples; I still remember that. Holding her, I was just astonished how warm and smooth and soft a young woman's body can be. Never more so than that night."

"We began to kiss, gently and slowly, and somehow it was perfect; so natural. Cheryl waited for me to French kiss her. When I did, she returned in kind. Then she helped me out of my T-shirt and the rest of my clothes. We lay on the bed and kissed and caressed each other. But there was no point in waiting."

"So I took her. When I was that age, so young, I was always amazed how you can feel sensations as intense as that. You know, when your cock glides into a woman's body and you just let go. You close your eyes and nothing else in the world matters. Not your job or your reputation or anything. You just savor that feeling and wish it could go on forever."

"Our lovemaking didn't last long. It had been months since I had a woman, and Cheryl felt so good. It was scarcely a moment before I climaxed. Cheryl didn't do it, of course. She didn't really come close."

Ken looked at his friend, who returned his gaze in silence. Finally John said, "So how did you feel afterwards?"

"I recall thinking, over and over, What's done can never be undone. That no matter what happens in the future, I can never change the fact that on this cool October night, I, the science teacher Mr. Mason, had sex with a student. Technically not my student, mind you, but a girl in my school nonetheless."

"And then?" remarked John.

"We had another Coke, I guess. We talked, but I don't know what about. Soon we began to kiss again, and I became aroused. Cheryl was really pleased. "Let's take it slow this time," she said, "slow and easy."

"I tried, and it was better for her, I suppose, but she did not climax even though I did. After that second time we talked some more. Then she got dressed and asked me to take her home. I put on a pair of jeans and loafers and my new black leather jacket. That was all, nothing else. Joe Cool. I drove her to her house."

"We parked near her parents' house, and sat talking for a while. Cheryl wasn't upset that she'd had sex with me. In fact, very sensible about it; she kept saying she didn't want me to feel guilty. A girl of eighteen, you see, but she knew more about the ways of the world than I."

The talk ceased. Now the sun briefly broke through clouds becoming pink. Its light bathed the room in soft tones of gold. John refilled their snifters with brandy. Ken then rose and, holding the glass in his hand, stood near the patio door, gazing outward.

"So that's what you drove down from Chicago to tell me?" said John. "To get it off your chest that a long time ago you slept with a high school student?"

"There's more," the man replied, his face partially in shadow. "As I said, I was desperately lonely then, all alone in town, struggling to be a teacher. I wasn't sure I'd made the right career choice. And here was a young woman who sensed all that." He watched the clouds for a few seconds; then, his voice became filled with emotions - regret and pain and tenderness too. He spoke again.

"John, what Cheryl and I did that night was wrong. But I want you to know that it was the kindest and most loving thing anyone has ever done for me."

He turned to his friend and spoke again. "Why did she do it? Why does any woman do that? It's as if they have this instinct to offer comfort to a man when he needs it most. And if it means giving him the pleasure of her body, she will do that too if the man and the circumstances are right. Why do women give us that, John? Even when we don't deserve it?"

John shrugged. "My friend, I'm a lowly retired math teacher. I don't understand women any more than you." When Ken made no comment, John continued. "So that was it? One reckless night?"

"No. We had one or two other sexual liaisons. By then I realized I should get a roommate. So I moved in with a guy, Dave, who had a two-bedroom apartment. It seems cold to say it, but after that, well, I didn't need Cheryl so much. Dave and I would do guy things together. Watch sports, play tennis, or go to a bar."

"Cheryl was hurt, in part because we could never have a real relationship. We couldn't even be seen in public together. I sure as hell couldn't go to her parents' house, ring the doorbell, and say, "Hi, I'm Mr. Mason, a teacher at Cheryl's high school, and I'm here to take your daughter out on a date."

Ken returned to his chair, again deep in thought. "When I hurt her, when she realized we had no future, Cheryl could have ruined me. It would have been so easy. Mention it to a girlfriend or tell the counselor. Yet she did not. Why? I don't know. Part of the scandal would have come down on her, but most people would have rightly blamed me for leading a young girl astray."

"Anyway," Ken went on, "Cheryl and I kept in touch with letters. She was never a paragon of virtue. For some reason she was attracted to men of authority. After she graduated, I heard she lived for a while with a policeman."

"I think for that period of time there were maybe four or five men in Cheryl's life. She would be with one for a while; then, move on to the next. Sooner or later my turn would come again."

"Did it?"

"Yes. After I moved back to Austin to go to grad school at UT, she flew down and visited for a couple of days that summer. And here's the funny thing, John. I never loved Cheryl; I dated other girls, and to be honest, I never thought much about her when she wasn't around."

"But when Cheryl got off that plane, when I saw her and heard her voice, I just ached to have her. I've never felt such intense desire for a woman. Maybe it was because of our first night together. Maybe it was pheromones or something; I don't know. But around her I was like a stag in rut. All I could think about was holding and kissing her and feeling her thighs wrapped around me."

Ken then smiled and shook his head. "We drove out to my parents' ranch near Fredericksburg and spent the night. Of course I only told them Cheryl was a girl I'd met in St. Louis. I left out the fact she'd been a student at my high school. My mom and dad were old fashioned, so they put Cheryl in our guest bedroom, on the other side of the house from my bedroom. Just to be sure."

"So anyway, that night Cheryl and I were in the living room after everyone else went to bed. We sat on a sofa near a big window, with the moonlight streaming in. We started kissing and all, and I was just dying to have her. I couldn't stand it. So guess what she did?"

"Tell me."

"She unzipped my pants and took out my cock; then, she bent down and began to suck me. When she took my cock into her mouth and held it, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I'd never had a blowjob. I was lucky to get what a woman has between her legs."

"But there, with my parents asleep in a bedroom maybe twenty feet away, Cheryl showed me another way a woman can pleasure a man. That girl drained me. We held each other and she let me fill her mouth with semen. Waited patiently, took every drop. Then she pulled out my T-shirt and released my semen onto the cloth. But I didn't care. I was still tingling all over and murmuring, Oh, man, oh jeez that was good."

Ken refilled his glass with brandy. Once more he began to reminisce. "I saw Cheryl one last time that summer. I drove back up to St. Louis to visit her. She was staying with a girlfriend in a house that her friend's parents owned. We spent most of the time in Cheryl's bedroom, of course. On the second or third time we made love, Cheryl finally had an orgasm."

"And John," smiled Ken, "it wasn't just a nice tingly feeling for her. It was a full-blown, gale-force winds orgasm, complete with crying out and scratching the hell out of my back. It just went on and on."

Ken shook his head. "I was twenty-four years old, and that was the first time I ever brought a woman to orgasm. Afterwards Cheryl was all over me. Talk about affection. I had to leave in a few hours, and she actually locked the door to keep me from going. Then she grabbed my car keys and wouldn't give them back. She finally relented; then, followed me out to the car."

"We stood there for maybe an hour on that dark street, just talking and giggling and kissing. So I learned something else from Cheryl. If you really want to please a girl, you don't need chocolates or flowers. Just be sure that when you make love, the fireworks go off for her and she hears the angel choir singing."

"That was the closest we ever came to feelings of love. But that was the end of it all. Tout fini. We exchanged letters after I returned to Austin, and made plans for her to visit me at Thanksgiving. Then, just like that, her letters stopped. No 'Dear Ken' letter, no nothing. I never saw or heard from Cheryl again. For whatever reasons, she must have decided to move on to the next guy on her list."

Now the room was silent. Both men reflected on the vicissitudes in life, the good and the bad that come to us all. Finally John spoke.

"You're not the first teacher who's ever bedded a student, Ken, nor the last, I suppose. I've been tempted a couple of times, but never strayed. I will say this. You were one lucky bastard. But I'm curious. This happened nearly forty years ago. It's ancient history. Why do you want to talk about it now?"

Again Ken took a deep breath. "A week or so ago, I had time on my hands. I began to wonder what happened to the people I'd known back then. So I did an internet search. I found a Cheryl Denson Conner who had attended East Side High here. She died a year ago."

"Hmm."

"I read Cheryl's obituary on the internet, John. She wasn't even sixty years old. And here's an odd thing. She'd married a guy and had kids, lived in Rockford. That's only about a hundred miles from Chicago. She's now buried in DeKalb, which is even closer."

John waited for Ken to speak again. Finally he did. "It's funny how, when a person you once knew dies, you have this urge to talk about the good in them. To let people know how they affected your life."

"But how does a man give a eulogy when it's a lover from long ago? I can't go to Cheryl's husband or family and say, Y'know, I sure enjoyed sleeping with Cheryl back when she was a teenager. She was a sweet girl then, and the sex was fantastic. In fact, she gave me my first ever blowjob."

Ken heaved a sigh as he finished. "So, John, you're the only one I can tell. I came here for that reason. To deliver a eulogy for the late Cheryl Denson."

"I didn't loved her," Ken went on, "but I'll always regret that I never told Cheryl she still meant a lot to me. Why couldn't I have just once kissed her, looked her in the eyes, and thanked her? Thanked her for giving solace and companionship to a lonely young man when he needed it the most. For offering me her body and asking little in return. For keeping silent when a word from her would have ruined me."

"You know what I'm going to say now, don't you, Ken?"

"I think so."

"We both have wives who've been with us for decades. It's not too late to thank them."

"Yes, it's always that way, isn't it? A death reminds us to look around and be grateful for those still with us."

After that the two men sat in silence for a long time. No more words were needed.