Ageless Erotica

by Ageless Erotica [MF] (retail) (epub)

  I placed the book on the changing table and began turning pages. I was entranced. One illustration showed a man and woman having sexual relations with big, sweaty smiles on their faces, eyelids half closed, bangs plastered to foreheads. The woman’s neck and back were arched, her nipples reaching for the man’s mouth, a mouth half open and honing in as if he could already taste the salt and sweat and, it appeared from her underarm hair, a touch of patchouli oil. I imagined myself arched like that and felt his soft lips sucking, pulling in my nipple. I was desperately hot.

  I turned a few more pages in a daze and stopped hard at self-pleasuring. Something told me I’d found what I’d been looking for.

  I was in a toilet stall in a mall in the heartland of America. Abortions were verboten here. Obama was a Muslim here. They sculpted cows out of butter here. What the hell were they doing with The Joy of Sex? In forty-five minutes, I had to talk to a group of insurance types about incidences of damage to old canvasses on gallery walls. About teenagers sticking gum on the shoe of The Blue Boy. About an octogenarian spitting on one of the Sabine women’s rapists.

  The motto of the actuary really ought to be: Shit happens.

  Yes. Indeed.

  I was ready to see what Charles saw every night when he commanded me to roll on my back and open my legs. I was ready to do what the book told me to do. Pleasure myself.

  I spread paper towels on the floor of the stall. I took off my shoes, my panty hose and my pathetic white panties. I stuffed everything into my leather briefcase, the one my father had carried to and from his job at the bank. I hiked my suit skirt up to my waist where it ringed my naked midriff, crumpled and scratchy. I hung my suit jacket on one of the hooks. I took off my blouse. I pulled down the straps of my bra and my breasts became available to me. I had undressed myself in a bookstore toilet stall in a heat that was taking me where, I couldn’t say. Nor did I care.

  This stall had a small sink, so I washed and dried my hands. I had moisturizing lotion in my purse, so I rubbed some into my hands. I left the cap off and turned to the diagrams of a woman’s vulva.

  Now, who was I?

  I started with the drawings of a woman’s genitals. The woman lay on her back with her legs spread wide. Just like me. Her fingers rested on either side of her genitalia as if framing a work of art.

  These frank, head-on depictions shocked me. Here, between the legs of the woman with the scarlet toenail and fingernail polish, I suddenly saw the essence of woman. An exotic, aromatic, deeply captivating force. It’s as if she breathed through her vagina. She possessed an allure too primal, too feral for men.

  Therein the miseries of women. And the power.

  The labia—plump outer lips and thinner inner lips—are, by intent, half protective veiling, half glistening temptation. This woman’s dark and moist core, at the joining of her thighs, gave me to understand the word “puss”—said with a wet and hungry pucker of lips that unfurl with the expulsion of s’s. Saying “puss” and licking puss are almost the same thing. I could have fastened my lips on hers.

  Such purpose in this grand design! And there was the glorious clitoris—merely a temptress in this fleshy assemblage in which perpetuation of our species is all that matters.

  At the vortex of this wet and erotic world of wonders lay the vaginal opening, threshold to the vagina itself, whose tufted recesses drew in the eye, the hand, the organ and exuded the life force. My god. This was a deep and complex scheme, the power of which I could not begin to grasp there in a stall in a Des Moines bookstore full of greeting cards and carrying what was clearly an excess of flowery journals begging lonely-hearts for their secrets.

  Lonely hearts.

  Oh.

  What about me? My longing. My own vaginal opening had been touched only by Charles’s penis. Touched once a year by my gloved gynecologist with a thumb and forefinger, and only enough to gingerly part the labia in order to insert the metal speculum that filled me the way Charles did—without sensory perception or regard for flesh. In truth my vulva was like the rest of me: wanting.

  I squeezed moisturizer onto my nipples and looked at myself in the mirror above the changing table. My little breasts were bulbous protrusions resting on a bony ribcage. Soft against hard, somehow the very definition of sex. A confounding puzzle of opposing forces. I was cold. And hot. Hot for release from this sudden need to touch the parts of myself I hadn’t known existed.

  There, like the whites of two wide eyes, were two mounds of Jergens moisturizer atop my nipples. No one, no man, no baby, had ever suckled these tight little nipples, now plumping themselves with Jergens.

  A virginal portrait. How could I, a woman who had been fucked 16,332 times (there were travel days, and once I was hospitalized for flu-related dehydration), dare presume to call herself virginal? But I was.

  Someone rattled the handle to my stall. “Everything all right in there?”

  I was addled by want. Delirious. “Yes,” I shouted.

  I caught sight of myself in the mirror again. All women are beautiful when they are naked. Clothes mask the truth of a woman’s beauty. Fat or skinny, young or old. It’s the gorgeous woman symmetry, the unbroken line, the perfect alignment of shoulder and breast and pelvis and joining of thighs. From this geometry all math is born.

  The soft round mound of my pubis was a beautiful sight. I put my foot back up on the toilet seat and squeezed lotion all over my outer labia. I rubbed it into my mons pubis. My odd nakedness seemed to be saying, “Comfort me. Cup me in your hands.”

  Oh damn. Just do it.

  The book said that direct clitoral stimulation requires utmost finesse. Be gentle. So for the first time in my life, I put the tip of one finger on my clitoris and rubbed it back and forth, visualizing a feather, like in the book, back and forth. I blocked out the sounds of running water just outside the door, flushing toilets, the scuffling of feet on this cement floor. I put lotion on my finger and quickened the pace. Back and forth. It was good the way nothing else was good. A deep, desperate, urgent good. A good that pressed for more. A good that said, “Keep going or die.”

  A steady rhythm worked best. I was able to witness the whole thing in the mirror above the changing table, in the mirror over the sink, in the reflection of the metal stall walls. I saw my lower abdomen draw in, tightening the muscles in my pelvic floor. I inserted my finger into my vagina and felt it contract. My clitoris tightened, too, growing harder and smaller and more illusive. I chased after it.

  What?

  I could not believe that Charles’s penis invaded this soft, sweet oasis every night without hesitation, without curiosity, without sensitivity. My vagina reminded me of a pomegranate, folds of glistening ruby-like flesh hidden by pale skin that is easily parted for greater access.

  I found that I had been holding one finger in my vagina. Like sucking my thumb. Like cradling a marble in the warm palm of my hand. I could live inside my vagina. I moved my hips. I rode my finger. It was delicious.

  Another knock on the door.

  “Ohhhh,” I moaned. I saw myself, the look on my face, the purple vulva, the pelvis that could not hold still. On fire, just like Bruce Springsteen sang. I was on fire.

  Another knock. “Hello?”

  Oh, fuck you.

  “Should I call anyone?”

  “No. No!” I practically shouted.

  Shit. In thirty minutes I need to be standing in front of sixty-five men and thirty-two women, where I would use a laser beam and PowerPoint to note interesting data on museum accidents. Teenagers on school trips were the worst.

  I was a far cry from the lectern.

  I put two fingers into my vagina and then stuck them in my mouth. I had never tasted anything like it. Like me. And yet here I was the whole time.

  Another knock on the door. “Lady.” It was a man’s voice.

  “What?” I rubbed the Jergens into my nipples, finally, and pinched them till it hurt. I felt a rush between my legs. Fluids dripped to the floor.
/>   The man again. Pounding. “People need to get in there.”

  “Not yet.”

  More shouts. “Open up!”

  “What?”

  “Come out of there!”

  “I can’t. Not yet.”

  One hand had found my clitoris again. One hand was rubbing my nipples. I couldn’t do it all, by myself, like I wanted. God. Everybody, just go away. Or come in to help me. I can use your mouths, your fingers, your big toes just like the book shows.

  I heard wheels squeaking. A baby carriage perhaps. But I was not in a place where I could ever, in a million years, ever stop.

  There I was, finally.

  Rosie. My fingers in service to my clitoris—queen clitoris—like the queen bee, enfolded, served, expanding as she’s fed and nurtured. I was done with gentle. My hips were on automatic pilot. They moved to a rhythm I hadn’t known existed. My breasts, red from all the attention I had paid them, took part in this dance. They bounced up and down, up and down. This was how a woman’s breasts must move, I thought, when she rode a man like in the book. Now I, once the anonymous Rosie, was on top. All I did was rub against my fingertips and my body knew just what to do. All of a sudden, it was as if my vagina opened up. My fingers slid in and my core clamped down in convulsive spasms. Warmth spread up and through me. I tasted honey. My legs turned to jelly. I peed all over my hand.

  In orgasm a woman discovers her power. In orgasm she owns the world. No wonder they cut you to pieces. Sewed you up. Filled you with children.

  Fuck all of you.

  The man on the other side was pushing against the door. I pushed back. The cold door against my hard nipples made me hot all over again.

  I walked into my brownstone in Boston right around ten thirty that night. I parked my suitcase by the closet, took off my suit, and showered, entered the bedroom naked. Charles took one look and dropped the clicker.

  “Look at me,” I said. “There isn’t an inch of this body that you aren’t going to touch tonight. Or else, I’m out of here.” I pointed to the suitcase. “I don’t even need to pack.”

  I reached into my pocketbook sitting at the foot of the bed and pulled out The Joy of Sex.

  “If you have any questions, here’s some reference material.”

  While I was at it, I tossed a small bottle of KY warming liquid into his lap. “And from now on, use that.”

  I’d had one orgasm already that day, but I was just getting started.

  “Look at me,” I told Charles. “There’s no such thing as old age to a horny woman. So don’t stroke out on me.”

  BLIND, NOT DEAD

  Johnny Dragona

  Not getting much attention from my wife, Joann, after forty years of marriage, I joined an organization of people who are blind, in the hope of finding someone with whom I had something in common. I began to correspond by cassette tape with Caroline, who had lost her eyesight as a teenager.

  While she usually teased me about my New Jersey accent, I loved her Alabama drawl. She was a woman in her late fifties with a naturally sensuous voice. I had no idea what she looked like, nor had she ever asked for a description of me. We never came on to each other, but there was a gleam in her voice I couldn’t interpret. And something about her had me going.

  But she was married, and I was married, which was probably what kept our conversations strictly on the social level at first. The only problem with that was trying to keep our taped correspondences on the subjects of trees in our areas, gardening, and what we do on our summer vacations.

  Gradually, we began to talk about more personal things. She didn’t seem happily married, and I knew my wife just tolerated me. So that was another thing we had in common. Was Caroline reaching out for an extramarital lover? Or did she just need someone to confide in? At best, we could have one of those long distance affairs. But some affection is better than no affection. After all, it would only be words. What harm could that do?

  “He’s always tinkering with his cars,” Caroline said on one tape. “Meanwhile, I just sit around, listening to something boring on television. If I could drive, I’d get into my car and go for a long ride. But that’ll never happen.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed on the return tape. “I know what you mean about your husband always having something else to occupy him. My wife is always going to bingo or somewhere with friends. It’s getting to the point where she’s either asleep on the sofa or out.”

  Before long, we were talking on the telephone, and Caroline got even deeper into her marital dissatisfaction. “Oh, he likes sex,” she said in response to the question I had asked. “The only thing is that he wants me to parade around in front of him in black panties and a black bra.” Not being sighted, she didn’t appreciate the excitement in that.

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “I’ve often imagined you in jeans and a loose fitting sweatshirt.” I visualized the swell of her breasts under a shirt and fantasized myself kneading them.

  “And why is that?” she asked with that honeycomb voice that had often stimulated me.

  “I like to use my imagination,” I groaned, not having meant to inject a sensuous intonation into my voice. But she had me turned on.

  “Oh?” Caroline said and paused, probably not having meant to inject a sensuous intonation into her voice either. “And what else have you imagined?”

  “I’ll never tell,” I said and grunted a laugh. But going down on her had also been one of my recurring fantasies. What the hell, we may have been old, but we weren’t dead yet.

  “Tell me,” Caroline demanded with a soft voice.

  “I’ve often wondered what you look like,” I admitted. Actually, that wasn’t important. There was something inside of Caroline that attracted me. And I wasn’t sure what it was. It was as if there was a passion within her that yearned to be freed, a passion I wanted to help her free.

  “Well, if we ever meet, I’ll let you feel me,” Caroline said and giggled. “Only certain places, though,” she added.

  “Of course,” I agreed, hoping she hadn’t meant that latter part. But we would probably never meet.

  In June of that year, she asked me to attend a national convention of people who are blind. Knowing we weren’t happily married, I secretly hoped something was going to happen—did she? With that soft voice of hers pressing my buttons, I agreed to reserve a room in the hotel in which she would be staying and make the trip to Phoenix.

  On the night before I was scheduled to leave for Phoenix, I had to do something to get Caroline out of my mind while I lay in bed. “Hon?” I said to Joann softly, and got no response.

  As usual, my wife’s back was turned to me. Also as usual, she was sleeping.

  Rolling over to face her, or face her back, I slid an arm around Joann and cupped a breast.

  Wouldn’t you know it? She was wearing pajamas, and the top was buttoned almost to the collar.

  I’ve often said that whoever invented pajamas for women should have been shot. Joann, at sixty, has a luscious, curvy shape. She should only wear mid-thigh-length nightgowns that were low-cut enough to expose as much cleavage as possible. But apparently, she hadn’t read that book.

  “Hon?” I said again. Hearing no response, I gently kneaded a breast.

  “What’re you doing?” a groggy voice asked.

  “In the mood?” I asked, knowing there was a 99 percent chance she wasn’t.

  “Tomorrow,” she groaned in a way that suggested she hoped tomorrow would never come, as far as sex was concerned.

  “I won’t be here tomorrow night,” I said and circled one of her nipples with the tip of a finger in the hope of stimulating it.

  “Where you going?” she asked with an undisguised lack of interest.

  “I’ll be in Phoenix,” I said, hoping to keep her awake long enough to get laid.

  “Oh . . . right . . . have a good time.” Within three seconds, she was sleeping again.

  Rolling onto my back, I considered masturbating, if only to reli
eve the pressure. Thoughts of what it would be like to sleep with Caroline entered my mind. What would it be like to hold her naked body against mine all night? We could even make love in the shower as the warm water sprayed over us. But that was just a fantasy. And a fantasy would have to do for the time being.

  After dropping my suitcase onto the bed, I found the telephone and dialed Caroline’s number. Even if we didn’t have sex that weekend, which was what I had been hoping for, I expected to have a pleasant time with her. She was comfortable to talk with, and she seemed to like me.

  “Hi!” she said as excitedly as a Southern belle can get and still maintain an air of dignity. “Give me fifteen minutes to take a shower and come on up. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you.”

  “Need someone to scrub your back?” I asked to test the water, so to speak.

  “I’m perfectly capable of washing my back,” she said and chuckled devilishly. “But thank you for the kind offer anyway.”

  I gave Caroline ten minutes. And sure enough, her door was unlocked. Hearing her humming in the shower, I resisted the urge to ask if she wanted company and knocked on the bathroom door to let her know I was there.

  The water stopped. In the middle of a cheerful greeting, she paused. “Oh! I left my towel on the dresser. Will you bring it to me?”

  Was that an invitation, or what? It took me a few seconds to find the thing because her room was different than mine. “Okay,” I said and tapped on the door with my fingernails. “Here it is. We guys from New Joizie will do anything for a lady.”

  Caroline chuckled while she slid the shower curtain open. “Are you sure you’re totally blind?” she asked and stepped out of the tub.

  “The last time I tried to look at a naked woman, I couldn’t see her.” While a hand touched the towel and took it from me, I decided to throw out a hint. “So she had to let me feel her.” That hadn’t been true, but it seemed like a good way to let her know what I was hoping.

  Caroline must have been drying her face, because she spoke with a muffled voice. “Uh, huh?” Her incredulity was obvious.