Cradle-snatching

The first thing I did when I got into the office was search for the bakery on Google. The girl had been slim, luxurious red hair, softly spoken - she handed me my pastry and I had given her my heart in payment (also though, money). I had cursed myself for a fool for leaving without asking her, remembering the way her hand had rested for a moment in mine with the change. Never before in the history of human romance had grimy 20p coins been such a potent aphrodisiac.

Google came through. The phone rang. A woman answered, husky and mature. She was aged stilton against the fluffy souffle of my bakery love. Her cordial reception turned briefly sour as I enquired as to whether this was the bakery with the beautiful young woman in it - and in a flutter of breathless seconds I had been handed over. 

"Hello?" she asked, tentative, perhaps amused?

"Hi", I ingeniously replied. "I came in about half an hour ago wearing this and that. All the way to work I was cursing a missed opportunity, because you're so extravagantly beautiful. Could I maybe take you out to dinner?"

There! It was in the open. Time paused its stately pace for images of our life together to flash through my mind; the feel of her interlocking fingers as we perused the funfair, her squeal as I made dinner for us, splashing the flour at her - my hearty guffaw as she nervously got lowered into the shark-cake by the Galapagos. Perhaps the feel of her smooth skin under my lips. My life was about to take a drastic and profound turn towards the better, loneliness banished and true companionship settling as a foundation into my heart. Neil Diamond would have loved it. 

"Well" she breathed, and my breath caught with her. "I'm only 16".

"Oh," I deftly countered. "Shitters. Never mind then."

Farewell, oddly aged bakery love. Steak and onion pie brought us briefly together, the tender age of your delectable flesh tore us apart.

Such is life.