Bright Young Thing

I like to date older men. Here's what I want them to think about me.

Am I not just an absolute delight? Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, dressed up just for the date. I'm either in a modest frock, because I'm such a good girl, or something edgier, with a tie or hint of midriff - showing my age. Did I mention I'm twenty to thirty years younger than you? 

It's probably from a charity shop and I remember the price. My bag? I got out my sewing machine and made it myself. My sketchbook pokes from a pocket. I've got my fingers in so many creative pies. Please think I'm wonderful.

You're white, between fifty and sixty. Balding is acceptable, but completely bald isn't. I want my silver fox! I'm not obese, so neither should you be, though there's a chance I weigh more than you, something you're somewhat aware that I'm incredibly aware of. I don't have daddy issues. Psychoanalyse THAT!

Porcelain skin, red waves down my back. Blue eyes like that Miley Cyrus meme, but you don't know what a meme is. I laugh when you compare my colouring to Ophelia; my hair was cropped short for my teenage years, spent hunched over in baggy clothing, convincing myself I had gender dysphoria. You don't know what that is either. I flash a smile once blocked by braces and buck teeth, run my tongue along the permanent wire in my lower jaw and mutter a quick prayer to NHS orthodontics. It's definitely not a childhood of genuinely detesting my looks and seeking affection that brought me here. I'm hot now. I can tell by your face and your hand on my thigh.   

I answer all your questions and nod understandingly when you tell me your life's ups and downs. I want to know more about you, too. Wow, your divorce sounded so hard! You pay for dinner. I'm so new to adulthood and so broke. If I was skinnier, I'd want to remind you of a bumbling baby deer, but I’m not. I remind you half-jokingly how lucky you are that you own property and don't have student loans to repay.

Boys my age that I like don't like me but you're enthralled. Is it because you're enraptured by my sunny nature and impeccable manners (You're so unlike other people your age) or just because you can't quite believe you're going to be able to fuck someone younger than you've ever fucked before?

You find it fascinating that I'm an atheist churchgoer. I say I love the architecture, the ritual. You don't know that I depend on the compliments from the older women in the congregation about what I'm wearing and how well I speak almost as much as I'm depending on you praising me now via a tongue down my throat as you call an Uber home. Can you taste that wire on my bottom teeth? 

Mass is tomorrow, which is why I can't stay over, but my atheism is explained when you realise I'm far too easy to be a Christian. I straddle you, noting what a bright young thing I am against your years of tans, thanking God your eyesight's deteriorated too much to notice the scars on my thighs. You're not looking at those anyway.