“Yep,” Chloë said.
Morgan rolled her eyes, suddenly wishing she hadn’t asked.
“But it’s cool,” Chloë added. “I’ve always been more attracted to older women anyway.”
“What? Seriously? Why?”
Chloë shrugged.
“Who knows? Why do I like white chocolate or why do I like the color blue so much? I was just born this way.”
Morgan marveled at the ease with which Chloë could avoid overanalyzing the question. If their ages had been reversed and it was Chloë asking, Morgan knew she would have examined the matter six ways to Sunday and may have even written a journal entry that could pass as a doctoral thesis.
A sudden thought came to her and it made her sit up, the bedsheet falling away from her nude torso.
“Fuck!” she exclaimed.
Chloë sat up also.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Morgan looked at her.
“I just realized that I will turn forty before you even turn thirty!” Morgan covered her hands with her face. “Oh my God!”
Laughing, Chloë rubbed Morgan’s back.
“Great boobs, great legs and you can do math,” she said.
Morgan playfully smacked Chloë’s leg.
“Shut up!”
Chloë laid back down, hands behind her head, the very picture of sexy cool.
“It’s no big deal,” she said.
Morgan looked at her.
“No big deal? Aargh! Just wait until you’re in your thirties. The clichés are true, you know! As soon as a woman hits thirty it’s like she loses all sense of rationality about numbers. Birthdays just become annual reminders of impending doom.” She frowned at Chloë. “Stop laughing!”
Chloë was beside herself with mirth, writhing on the bed. When she was finally able to control herself, she pulled Morgan by the arm to make her lay down next to her again.
“Dude, you are going to be a sexy forty-year-old,” Chloë said, tucking a lock of Morgan’s hair behind her ear.
Morgan smiled.
“Thanks, but can we not bring up the number forty anymore tonight?” Morgan was already regretting her meltdown. The last thing she needed to do was remind her much younger lover of the gap in their ages.
“You brought it up first!” Chloë protested.
“I know, I know…Just change the topic, please, before I actually try to build a time machine.”
“Okay…” Chloë began. “I’m starting to miss my own bed.”
A small frown of puzzlement came over Morgan’s features but then she was able to put aside her worries about her age and interpret what Chloë was telling her.
“Oh! Right! Yeah, I guess we’ve only been sleeping here, haven’t we?”