Article 2521 of alt.sex.stories.hetero: From: trekat@theriver.com Subject: Swansong [m/f -older] Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 22:44:50 GMT Swansong Like most older men, I would have given anything to have known then what I know now. Nature plays a dirty trick on us men though: by the time we learn what we need to know about life, sex for example, we are almost too old and physically limited to do a lot about it. If we try to do something about it - to somehow recreate our lives and be sexual beings again - we're labeled `dirty, old man.' We are supposed to simply give up, rest in our rocking chairs and reminisce. That is grossly unfair. For last few years, from fifty-five to sixty, I had ached to amend my life and in some way correct those errors of omission, more than commission, I so willingly committed for so many years. For all my blather about being liberated, I had been at heart a prude. Sex was good for me only if was `nasty.' Power was the game, not love or even real pleasure, so I did a lot of damage to myself as well as others. What happened to me shortly after my sixty-first birthday, with a very young woman, brought me face to face with my own failings and fears. I was married for over thirty years to the same woman and when she died, I was left alone, no longer young or eligible. Society, economics, and my own earlier lack of sense, obliged me to live with my relatives. I wasn't happy about it and I don't think they were either. We got along but I was not given to aging gracefully. Every time I wanted to go or to do, I ran head on into those ugly attitudes that insist a man of my age isn't supposed to do this or that, or go here or there, or even feel a certain way. After a couple of years of playing "grandfather," for my stepdaughter and her brainless, macho husband, I was a grouchy as a bear with a sore paw. I felt that their whole attitude toward me was one of not-quite-sincere deference and patronizing patience. Granted, I couldn't drink most men under the table - not that I ever wanted to - nor could I do physical labor all day long; nor could I hold my own in some silly brawl; nor could I get a decent job with any interesting responsibility. Sadly, if I had a woman, I certainly could not make love to her oftener than once every two weeks. I dated, however, usually some elderly widow with an attitude as patronizing as my step-daughter. I usually ended the so-called date by chasing the old biddy hen off with some fairly harsh words. The idea that `you're too old for that sort of thing,' provoked me beyond belief! Perhaps it would have resolved things had I found a woman who looked at life and loving instead of death, infirmity and dissolution as her lot in life. The other attitude I encountered had to do with deceased spouses. While I have a deep respect for any long standing union between a man and a woman, I had no desire to be a pinch hitter for some bozo who achieved sainthood merely because he had died. So there I was, beginning to think that perhaps I was wrong, that maybe it was proper that a man my age should shut down his ambition and his sexual feelings and become a walking vegetable. Then along came Arlette. Mark's wife, Suzie, was a scatter-brained, artificial, dissimilating little snot, to phrase it as kindly as possible. She leached off of men using what amounted to false advertising. She would wear revealing clothes, lots of makeup and move in a way that suggested dim bedrooms and torrid nights. She was however a cold, calculating mercenary woman with very little of that elusive quality they term `class.'. The average prostitute is far more honest and safer to associate with. Suzie and Mark had a going-on- fifteen-year-old daughter I had not seen for most of her life. I'd seen her as a baby of course, but because of geographical separation I never really got to know her. Neither my late wife nor I cared much for Suzie so we didn't visit often. When my step-son finally realized just what a bimbo Suzie was, he finally did something about it. He divorced her and took custody of their daughter. His working schedule however kept him hopping from city to city, and with no wife or live-in lady, the girl was too often on her own. So my step- daughter, Molly, volunteered to take the kid on a part time basis. That's when I met Arlette. At fourteen-and-a-half, Arlette was lovely. She was just past that coltish, giggly stage and about to make the consequential step into biological womanhood. She was tall for her age - five-foot-six - blonde, blue eyed, with long limbs and a healthy, clear complexion, somehow avoiding the `zits' some kids area cursed with at that age. When she wasn't self conscious about it, she moved with a natural grace that was awesome. Most of the time however, she went about with her eyes downcast, tiptoeing around, acting like a dog that's been kicked a few times too often. She hadn't grown sly yet like her mother, but she was headed that way. She would behave in a defiant way now and again, but always over small, incidental things that gained her very minor victories. She told stupid lies too, as if the truth wasn't good enough or interesting enough for anyone to hear. She put on a fairly good facade however, sometimes acting as if she really didn't care, but that tactic didn't work well either. She was a well trained `victim' just waiting for some victimizer to come along. It made me furious to see it. Like most of her peers though, she was discovering boys - that's BOYS! in upper case letters that is. Boys however are jerks. They seem to be either wimps or super-macho little asses. It isn't their fault altogether; it's they way we raise them, frustrating any genuine maleness in them and giving them exaggerated aggressive attitudes and mock instruments of violence to play with. In defense, many young girls develop manipulative habits, using their sexual attraction to con boys with pseudo sex or a establishing a sham of stupidity to get what they need from them. It's a pretty sorry situation. Arlette and I got along fairly well however and I think that was because she saw me as a grandfather image more than a viable male person. The kid had problems though and I would have bundled her off to a good therapist, post haste if I'd had my way. I noticed how she was with the young guys who eventually began to show up at the door and I was not a happy camper about what I was seeing. She simpered and giggled and acted stupid, but when the boys were not around, she showed promise of real intelligence. She had been hammered down by her parents though, told she was stupid and generally shoved into the position of second fiddle to her slightly older sister so she of course acted stupid and awkward and self-loathing. I hated to see that, so I found the opportunity to take a couple of long walks with her and get to know her better. She indulged me - the old grandpa - and went along with me. I tried to listen to her, to find out what she really felt, but like some others, at first she tended to patronize me. I put up with that because I needed to know whether or not she could realize the potential I saw in her. When she got into a beef with her older sister on the telephone about some cherished item older sister had given away, I saw the anguish and awful self-doubt the kid was saddled with and I wanted to rip into the sister like the old curmudgeon I'm supposed to be. She caved in to her mom and sister, giving up on what she wanted, but the rage and heartache on her face was so very plain to see that I hurt for her. That sort of bullying is all too familiar to me! On impulse, I suddenly hugged her and said, "Tell `em to go to hell, kid." Then I left the room, her staring after me with a dumbfounded expression on her face. A couple of days later, after one of my compulsory evenings with one of those sour faced widows, I went on a walk again with Arlette. She was still seething inwardly about the recent ripoff so when I mentioned it, she flared up for just a moment. Her eyes flashed for a second and her righteous indignation showed, then she quickly withdrew into her `passive kid' mode. That momentary flare of self- awareness was beautiful to see. She just might be, I thought, a real person and a glorious woman if she could shed the apathy and somehow maintain that spark of character. Half way around the open field a mile or so from the house, we came to a log and, pretending weariness, I asked her to sit with me. I was quiet so long that she asked if I were all right. "Yeah," I said, "I'm okay. I just have a lot on my mind really." Out of politeness, she asked, "What's the matter?" "I'm just fed up with being jerked around," I said candidly. "I get pushed into going out with some women I wouldn't escort to a dog fight because your aunt thinks I need the exercise." Arlette laughed - almost. "She just wants you to be active." "Active? How active can I be around some old hen who only wants to find out how much dough I have in the bank? I don't really enjoy about hearing what a paragon of manhood her late husband was either." "Well," she said, "you don't have to go out if you don't want to." I looked at her without saying anything for a few seconds. "I suppose," I said after a bit. "But I do like to go out. The trouble is, I'd rather go out, do my own thing and find my own kind of woman rather than have a planned evening with somebody's female relative who is being shoved at me just so they can get rid of her." Arlette gazed at me, frowning for a moment. "You still want to really date?" "Oh, you bet I do!" I put on a grin. "Did you think that I didn't care for girls anymore?" She looked surprised, as I knew she would. "You do?" "Sure," I nodded easily. "That doesn't change at any age." I could see the burning question churning around inside her blonde head and I waited for it to come out. But it didn't so I pushed the question. "Does that surprise you?" I asked her. I wasn't trying to raise the matter of sex but just attempting to get her to speak her mind. She shrugged, looking away. "I guess so." "Well," I said casually as I could, "I think anyone has the right to live their own life too, more or less." She kept looking away and I was afraid that I was boring her. So I offered, "Don't you want to run your own life too?" She looked back, an instant's anger in her eyes. "Nobody can just do what they want to." "Oh? And why not?" She made an impatient gesture with her hands. "Because we have to live with other people, that's why. Kids have to... "Uh-huh. Which people?" She looked startled. "Any people," she said, somewhat impatiently. "That can get to be emotionally expensive. If you try to live your life to please everybody," I said slowly, "then you don't have any life at all, Arlette. All you have is someone else's life to lead. And since people often have different opinions, you can end up with no real opinion of your own." She gazed at me intently, curiously, and I think I saw the beginning of thought behind the annoyance in her expression. She didn't say anything so I plunged on. "You know," I mused aloud, "being a bit elderly is a lot like being very young again. Everybody seems to think that you haven't any brains at all and that they have to do everything for you. Like fix you up with boring old ladies." I chuckled. "But all of us have a sense of what is right and what is not right for us, at any age." "Maybe you do," she said in a grim tone, "but I don't. I don't know anything." I sat up straight and stared at her, making a scowl. "Oh yeah? Says who?" She shifted nervously. "I'm a kid." "Oh really? A few years ago you would have been considered a woman. Even at that, it's likely someone would have told you just who you would marry and what your life would be. But happily, you have a say in the matter these days." "Oh, sure," she said sarcastically. "I can do whatever I want to." "Nobody can do exactly whatever they want to unless they live on a desert island, and as the man said, no one is an island. However," I went on quickly, "we have sovereignty." "Sov - what?" "Sovereignty," I repeated. Then I told her a fairy tale I'm fairly sure she hadn't heard. It's the one about the prince who married the very ugly woman. She could be beautiful in the day or at night, but not both. When she wasn't beautiful, she was the most homely woman in the kingdom. She told the prince and asked him which way he preferred, having her lovely by day or by night. After a lot of thought, and some good advice from the neighborhood Wise Woman, the prince gave his bride the choice. By giving her that option, the prince broke the evil spell and the woman could be herself all the time. Of course she was beautiful prior to the spell, so that was how she appeared all the time. When I had finished the tale, Arlette looked at me with a strange, appraising kind of expression on her features. "Why didn't she just be one way or the other? She was pretty some of the time anyway." "Because it wasn't the way she really was. Someone else forced her to choose one way or the other. They didn't let her decide for herself." "She was a princess, but how could any ordinary person be beautiful all the time?" "No one really is," I said carefully. "Most of us are part beautiful and part ugly, part dumb and part smart. But whichever way we are, it's our personal decision to be that way, not someone else's decision. You see? In other words, the princess was the victim of someone else's manipulation until the prince came along and, as her husband, put an end to it by giving her sovereignty." "I'm not ugly," she said suddenly. "No," I said, "you're very pretty. You are also pretty bright." She shook her head quickly. "No, I'm not. I make mistakes." "That's how we all learn. Just because you make a mistake doesn't mean that you are a mistake. And everybody makes errors from time to time." Her face twisted for a moment and tear started in her eyes. "I wish I didn't make mistakes." "Hell," I said "then you'd never, ever learn anything." "Oh, that sounds okay, but I make too many goofs. I just can't help it." She looked away, hiding her tears. "Bullshit," I said evenly. Her head whipped around and she stared at me, slightly shocked. "You cussed," she wondered. "I do that when something pisses me off too much." "I guess you can get away with that at your age." "At any age, Arlette. I was a juvenile delinquent and now I play the role of curmudgeon. Just like you play the role of a goof up." That was an exaggeration of course. "Maybe I should be a juvenile delinquent," she laughed bitterly. "Okay, but if you do, be smart about it. Go ahead and behave like a little lady most of the time, but for Pete's sake, don't buy the crap about having to be bad or ugly because someone says you have to be one or the other. You act according to how you see yourself, and if you see yourself as stupid, or ugly, or evil, then that's how you behave. You don't have a prince yet, so give yourself the right to choose who you are. Be a good parent to yourself if you have to." "Sovereignty," she said slowly. "Right!" I thought I had it all worked out. I'd straighten the kid out and score one for the Gipper as far as her mental health and self- esteem was concerned. But she had her own way of expressing what she really felt. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "Ho," I grunted. "I should put that in my memory book. But don't go around kissing men just to be polite." I shouldn't have said that. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just did it because you were being nice to me." I grabbed her hands. "No, it's okay. You just startled me, that's all." I paused. "I was being cynical because I've become that way lately. I guess I miss being kissed by a pretty woman and I'm bitter about it." Arlette stared at me. "But you've kissed a lot of pretty girls, I'm sure." "Oh sure. And I still like it. It's been a long, long time though - too darned long. Like I said," I added thoughtlessly, "everyone seems to think that because I'm older I don't have any feelings about "You do?" "Oh for sure I do!" I exclaimed. "I'm not dead yet." She managed a small laugh. "That's true. But... when you get older, don't you sort of lose, uh, sort of get over that?" In defense of us elders, I said, "No, you don't. You slow down but the same feelings you had at twenty and thirty are still inside of you, even if the body has aged some." I saw the next question in her eyes, so I added, "And, yes, older people can still make love. It takes longer, but the result is still the same. The difference is that you don't make babies. You never get over wanting love - physically." Her mouth dropped open. "You mean that older people do it?" I nodded, too annoyed to even look straight at her. "Oh my gosh!" she breathed. "That's hard to imagine." "Why?" I asked her, a bit sharply. "Because... because they're older." "Physically," I admitted. "The need for physical closeness is still a part of being human. If you give up on that, then by God, you're really finished with life." She touched my hand. "Did you and grandma... " I nodded. "Of course. The only limit, besides slower reaction time, is how you feel about each other and your basic attitude toward loving." She shook her head slowly, thinking. "And you both still liked it?" Again, I nodded. "It changes, naturally, but with a whole lifetime of experience behind you, you have a great deal of knowledge and feeling to draw from." Arlette sat silently, obviously trying to sort all of that out in her mind. Somehow we had sidetracked from the subject of her feelings and latched onto the topic of mine. "I'd better be getting back," she said, standing. "Thanks for the story about the ugly princess though. I think you were trying to make me feel better." As I stood, I said, "That was it. Think about it. Don't let anyone - and I mean anyone - determine how you regard yourself. We have a mind from the age of seven, but so often we allow someone with less intelligence, and less character as well, to do our thinking for us." "I bet no one did your thinking for you." "They did, I'm sorry to say. I messed up a lot of my life because of someone else's bull being fed to me. I was pretty old before I realized I had a mind and feelings of my own." She took my hand and we walked for some time holding hands. At the time, I didn't think much about walking and holding hands with a girl, I was just concerned about getting my message across to her. That's the way it's always been with me, unfortunately. I was usually on the prowl, thinking sexy and more often than not I overlooked the possibility of a good relationship right under my nose. She was half child, half woman, seething with all the health and hormones a teenager has to burn. Right then I should have called whoa, but I still felt that my age - for all I resented it - insulated me from any romantic involvement. I was woefully wrong. I really tried to convince myself that my reaction to that hasty kiss was only sentiment, but it wasn't. We had several walks and talks and after a time I began to sense that she wasn't merely humoring a lonely old man. Our discussions covered some pretty important subjects such as religion, politics and family relationships. For a long time she seemed to play yes man to me. I had just about given up on seeing her peek out of her shell and show some independence when she firmly disagreed with me. I concealed my delight and called her to question. "We have a natural, God given right to be who and what we are," I pontificated. "If God is so good, as you say," she said "then why do bad things always seem to happen to good folks and vise versa?" "God doesn't go diddling around in human affairs," I told her. "Besides, we make our own lives." "Okay then, why do other people influence us so much? A kid gets ordered around by her parents and if they're wrong then the kid gets messed up." "That's life," I hedged. "We still have to make decisions." "No we don't," she said with feeling. "A kid doesn't have any say at all. Supposing a kid knows something and the parents won't listen and then there's a problem?" I had to collect my thoughts. "You have a point. Maybe parents should respect their kids enough to really listen to them." She nodded with satisfaction. "But they don't. Like the kid I saw in a movie last week: he knew the monsters were coming but his father wouldn't listen so his parents got ate by the monsters." I had to chuckle. "Served `em right, didn't it?" She stopped. "I'm serious," she said, hands on her hips and almost glaring at me. "Even I'm not always right!" That was what I'd been dying to hear. I grinned at her. "You got it, kid." "Oh sure," she snorted, walking again. "So what good does it do to be right when you're a frigging kid? Kids are supposed to mind their parents no matter what." That was the first time I'd ever heard her say a word like that and I was set back a bit. I saw her watching me from the corner of her eye, gauging my reaction to the hard word. I gave a mental shrug about it and tried to respond to her tough question. "I don't have all the answers and neither do most parents," I said finally. "But parents are afraid that if they give a child too much leeway then they'll lose control." She thought a moment, then said, "So if I know I'm right, then should I disobey my parents?" Ouch! "It depends. If they tell a very little kid not to play hopscotch in the highway, then the kid had better listen or get run over. On the other hand, if the parents have a problem with drugs, drinking or social attitudes, then the kid would be better off not to follow their example." "That doesn't answer my question," she insisted. "I don't want to play hopscotch on the highway, but I do know some things my mom and dad don't know. But I can't tell them." "Why not?" She just shook her head. "I just can't." "I know it's rough," I said after a while, "and I'm aware that what passes for parenting in this society is primitive and is usually bad training for life as it really is." Arlette nodded, apparently deep in thought. "I wish my parents would listen," she said finally. Then a block from the house, she turned to me. "I think you listen, even if you don't have all the answers." I was so flattered and pleased, I didn't see the kiss coming. She leaned to me and planted on good one right on my mouth and then ran off like a antelope in high gear. She turned to wave back to me at the corner then she was gone. When the immediate shock of that kiss faded, I got another one. The recollection of her kiss lingered and I was both worried and delighted that I had an erection. It had been a long time since I'd felt that way. The next conversation with Arlette became even more serious. She began go ask me advice about some boy who was pressing her for sex. I told her to turn him down of course, citing AIDS, pregnancy and all the biological nasties lurking out there. Kids of that age think they're invulnerable so I'm not sure she heeded my advice. I didn't press for details and I didn't ask if she were virgin either, but I did wonder. Then I took a chance and, giving her that sovereignty I'd talked up so much, I told her that if she decided to, then to make sure she took precautions. She just nodded absently. "A real man doesn't push a woman into sex," I stated firmly. "If he wants her in that way, then he lets her know and waits for her decision. But too damn many guys act like it's some kind of a contest, with a scorecard and bragging rights. It isn't a game but a serious and lovely thing." I was so full of conceit, so focused on being the wise old man, playing mentor, that I forgot that I was dealing with a sexually viable female, old enough, if not wise enough, to seriously consider having a sexual relationship. Even after her queries about the boy, I didn't stop to consider that she may have had some sexual awareness, or even experience for that matter. Nor did I realize that old habits die hard and that I was coming on to her, verbally. Talking about sex is tantamount do doing it with a woman, and Arlette was close enough to womanhood to be effected by it. Age hadn't really insulated me from desire and so, for all my posing, I acted sexual with her by mentally planting the seeds of seduction in her. My erotic chickens came home to roost the night Arlette had to fight off some young stud who wouldn't take no for a valid answer. I was home alone for a change when the telephone rang. It was Arlette, needing a ride home. She'd gone to a party at a girlfriend's home and some pimpled punk - so I imagined - had come on to her in a demanding way. She had turned him down, he got nasty about it and then she had called for a ride. I knew where the keys to the pickup truck were kept, and I still had a valid license, so hearing the panic in her voice, I stormed out and drove to the address she had given me. I got there and walked in without knocking, looking around at the young people dancing, and necking, in the poorly lighted room. The music was blasting at about ninety decibels so I didn't bother even asking for any older person but just threaded my way through the crowd until I found Arlette. She was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to a husky young man with blond, short hair. I gave him a polite nod, and without saying a darn thing, held out my hand to Arlette. She took my hand and stood. "Hey," the young man said, coming to his feet, "who are you?" "I'm her ride home," I said curtly. "Gene," Arlette almost shouted over the noise, "this is my grandfather." "She wants to stay for a while," the guy told me, standing toe to toe with me. His manner was condescending as he added, "I can take her home later, Pops." I suppose my attitude had been more than a little pushy when I came it, so perhaps he was entitled to come back at me. However when he called me `Pops,' I lost it as Arlette would have put it. I felt that I didn't get a whole lot of respect when I was his age and so I demanded it later in life. I was a crew chief for some pretty tough guys for a while, so I wasn't about to stand for that impudent appellation. I put my palm in the middle of his net clad chest and pushed him back slightly. I wish I knew just what made me act that way. At the time I told myself that it was the disrespect, but I suspect that I was, of all things, showing off for a girl. I hadn't done that a lot even when I was younger. Perhaps it was the years of sexual frustration that prompted that rash act, but whatever really motivated my gesture, the kid slapped my arm away so fast I didn't even see it happen. If he had done it slowly, I would have realized that I was being belligerent and I might have even had the good sense to apologize and simply let it go at that. But because it was so fast, it frightened me and I reacted without thinking, just as I would have done many years earlier. I drove my other hand up from my waist and slammed the heel of my hand into his chin. Even from a old man, it's a devastating strike and I'm sure it caught him by surprise. He stumbled backward holding his bleeding mouth, a look of shock and anger on his handsome features. His surprise and my fast talking probably saved me from an embarrassing beating if not a stay in the local hospital. "It could have been your nose," I said quickly. "Drive the septum into a man's forebrain and he's morgue meat. I've done it a couple of times in my life. Don't make me do it to you." He recovered fairly quickly, backed off and looked at me with a look of calculated fury. "Gene," Arlette said, stepping in between us, "he's my guardian. Please don't do anything! We'll just leave and I'll talk to you later, okay?" The guy glanced from me to her and then back to me. "You got trouble, Old Man. I'm gonna trash your face." I think my face showed the consuming anger that flooded through me at that moment and that may have made him hesitate just long enough for Arlette to jerk me by the hand and hustle me out the back door. Outside, we got into the pickup and were just at the end of the driveway when half a dozen eager young men came boiling out of the house. I would liked to have called to them and told them off but common sense made me jam the truck into gear and leave before they could get to their vehicles, follow us and make mincemeat out of me. I did extend my arm out of the window and give the vulgar, one-finger salute as we rocked around the next corner at the end of the block. Like any woman, Arlette chewed me out about it. "Oh, my God, Neil! He's a brown belt in karate. He could have hurt you." I noticed she used my given name and not the unwanted title `grandpa.' I think that would almost have made it worth a stay in the hospital. A moment later she asked, "Have you really killed someone?" The words had jumped out of my mouth unconsciously like a lie and I then I remembered an alley fight when I had been stationed in San Diego. Three of us were on shore leave and after closing a bar off Market Street, we were ambushed by two men as we passed a dim alley. They had knives and I would have surrendered my wallet and been glad to escape alive. My shipmate, Tom, however locked arms with one of them, fighting for the wicked looking blade, and when the other desperado went for him, I moved without thinking. We all had just enough unarmed combat to get us into trouble, but somehow this time it worked, just the way the grizzled old Gunny Sergeant had said it would. I stepped up and jammed the heel of my hand into the beak of the second prowler and he went down instantly. I remember looking down at the man and somehow knowing that he was dead. We got away, possibly setting a new record for the quarter mile dash to the bus depot. Nothing ever appeared in the newspapers and, thankful for getting away with it, I buried the incident in the back of my mind. None of us reported it. Miles down the road toward home, I answered Arlette's question as honestly as I could. "I don't really know. I hit a mugger that way during a street fight a long time ago, and to be accurate about it, I'm not absolutely certain I killed him." "Oh," she said, her face pale as we passed a street light. She kept glancing at me in a half frightened, half admiring way until we got home. As I was helping her down from the truck, she kissed me. This time she didn't run away but hugged me and then walked slowly to the house as if such a kiss was an everyday thing between us. I was annoyed at my response and annoyed at her too for doing what I thought was teasing. It wasn't teasing. I didn't mention it and she didn't mention it for a couple of weeks, then on one of our walks, she brought it up again. "Grandpa," she said, using that disgusting label again, "thanks for picking me up that night." She paused, then continued. "I shouldn't have been so anxious about calling for a ride. It really wasn't that bad. I just panicked, I guess. I hope you didn't mind me kissing you. I just felt like doing it because no one ever fought for me before." Without looking at her, I asked, "Was the boy pushing you for... something more than just kissing?" She was quiet for a while, then replied. "I guess so. But it wasn't... I mean I could have handled it." "I'm sure," I replied offhand. "Still, I'm glad you called." Another long silence and then she said, "You were pretty boss about it. You must have been a bad dude when you were young." The `when you were young' part of it rubbed me the wrong way somehow and I said, almost curtly, "I'm still young. This carcass may look old but there's a twenty-year-old hiding inside. I'm never going to be old - inside anyway!" I said the last in such a heated tone that she stopped and gazed at me. "You know," she said, "you don't act old much at all." I laughed disdainfully but she kept looking at me in a serious, contemplatively way. Then she shocked me by saying, casually as if mentioning the weather, "I have done it with that boy you hit, so he wasn't really being pushy. But I don't want to do it anymore. I just didn't say stop and it happened. It wasn't much fun. It never is." I was sick for a moment, then I told myself that it really wasn't any of my business whether or not she was sexually active, as they say. I kept my face away, trying to come up with something wise and calm to say to her. Finally, I said, "That's not how it should be. Doing it with a boy isn't completely wrong, but there's more to being that way than just doing it - a whole lot more. Maybe I'm too romantic about it, but it should be more than fun." I finally looked at her. "It can be like, like dying and then coming to life again. It's always good, but it can be so much more than just good if it's with the right person." I'd said too damn much so I shut up. "I've never told anyone else," she said. "I just did it because I wanted to know what it was like." I nodded, getting over my shock. "Well, I don't think you discovered the best of it. And, believe me, we all are curious about it at your age and do just what you did. Usually, it's a big disappointment, I'm sorry to say." "You're right. It seemed like such a big thing at first, but then it... : She fell silent. "You weren't in love with him," I said flatly. She shook her head. "Try to wait until it's something that you really want to share because you care a lot for the other person." Then I felt a twist of bitterness and I added, "Morals aside, don't do it just to be doing it! Don't let yourself get numbed and casual about it. Save it - not because someone said you should - but because it is a special gift you want to give to someone you really like." Feeling like a pompous old fool, I quickly changed the subject to school and grades. But, once she had broached the subject, she didn't want to drop it so quickly. "But just how should I feel?" I shrugged, suddenly feeling awkward talking about sex to a girl pushing fifteen. "Like it's the most natural and proper way to feel," I said. "Like it's a consequence of something you have inside of you, some deep, loving feeling. And if it happens again, be damned sure you can absolutely trust that person with your life, because sex is the heart of you." She touched my arm. "Grandma was a very lucky woman." No she wasn't, I thought grimly. She didn't get the best I had to give. We began to talk about other things and I was very glad to get off the subject of sex. That wasn't the end of it, so I discovered a couple of nights later. I awoke to some small sound at some dead hour of the pre-dawn and for a moment I wasn't sure where I was. I glanced at the dim glow of the bedside clock, seeing that it was four AM. I sensed a presence in the room and sat up. The bed sagged under a weight and I made out Arlette's form in the darkness. "What's wrong?" I asked. "I couldn't sleep," she said in a low voice. "I kept thinking about what you said to me the other day. You know, about loving someone and everything." I'd shot off my stupid, old mouth and now I had a disturbed young girl on my hands. I had to say something to reassure her. "It's a knotty subject, " I began. "Just don't rush yourself about it." "No," she said, "I have to know." Either the light got better or my eyes adjusted but I could see her face and the shorty nightgown she had on. I was startled to see that her breasts were almost womanly under the gown. I wanted her out of there as fast I she could go, so I said, "We can talk about it again then if you have to. But right now, I don't think it's... " I didn't want to sound stuffy so I didn't finish the sentence. "Everyone's asleep," she said. "We talked about sex and everything before so what's wrong with now?" Without waiting for my response, she continued. "If wanting to do it with someone is because you care for them, then why shouldn't I want to be like that with you?" I was snared in a trap of my own making. She had obviously been churning the matter over in her mind and had come up with the wild idea to bed down with me. "I know you're older," she said quickly, "but you think like a young person. And if you really feel like a young guy inside, then you wouldn't mind my being in bed with you." "Now... " I started to say sternly, She pulled the gown off and quickly scooted under the covers. I had horrible visions of enraged parents and stern judges. But the shock of her nude body next to me stunned me into silence. She cuddled up to me. "You aren't really a relative," she whispered. "You're Daddy's step-person, so we aren't actually blood related." I was thinking that if I rejected her, coming from righteous indignation and moral loftiness, I could damage her already low self- esteem. I tried to maintain a calm, adult attitude. It didn't work. The feel of her young, taut warmth against me under the covers called up a legion of memories to overwhelm me. I reacted physically to her nearness and it was like some miracle I could not deny. She was a gift to me, I claimed, perhaps the last real chance I would ever have to know a young woman's love and weak old scoundrel that I am, I rationalized away my better judgment. I was going to do it for her benefit more than mine. That was a crock I sold myself on because I was truly sexually aroused for the first time in years. So I kissed her, that was all, just to make her feel wanted and not rejected. Nature had a wicked little surprise for me though. Need blanked my mind and high-mindedness fled like a thief in the night. In a minute we were kissing warmly and she was wrapped around me. Just the feel of her legs, arms and mouth, compliant and open to me turned me into a lusty young man once more. I was somehow above her then , finding her, coming into her and being with her. She was no longer a child to me but a woman, heated and ready and giving, loving me in the way a woman loves a man completely. For just an instant, I marveled at the ease with which I entered her, wondering how much experience she had. Then we moved together in the ancient dance of love. In that glorious moment of bittersweet convulsion, I knew why she had come to me in the night. Time warped backward and I was sixteen, she barely fifteen, together for the first, and only, time. I remembered that I had failed, guilt and fear plundering me of that beautiful, awesome moment of knowing. The girl left me, but now had returned to me in the hour before dawn to heal the decades old, shameful wound. I was shocked into reality by her voice in my ear when we had finished. "It was fun this time," she sighed. "You were right. I really felt like I was doing it with someone I care for." I had made my decision and done it and so I couldn't back down and act sorry about it. Damned if I'd dump my guilt on her! So I held her close and we talked until it got near dawn and I had to make her leave. "It was very beautiful," I told her, meaning it. "Even though we aren't right to be a pair of lovers, I am very glad we had this chance to be together. We will never do it again, but I'm grateful that we did." "It's dumb," she said, "but I feel like saying I love you or something." "You can say it, but it has to be a different kind of love," I managed to say. "I can't be your boyfriend, but we can have this very special thing between us." "Okay," she said. "But I still love you." I made her get up and put on her nightgown then and prayed to heaven that she could get back to her own room before anyone saw or heard her. I got very lucky, she did. The image of her in that second before the gown covered her body, standing with her arms raised in the pallid light from the window, as the embodiment of vital womanhood, seared my mind. Somehow it wasn't the same after that. I'd sacrificed my position of adviser, if not confidant, and became just another man to her. She would listen to my advice but the look of complete veneration was missing. She had called my bluff and showed me that I was merely mortal and not Moses from the mountain, dispensing old wisdom and guidance. For all she didn't seem ashamed about what we had done, or scornful toward me, nevertheless her attitude was one of casual friendship at best. We kept on taking our walks however, with warm moments of normal interchange. I took comfort in the fact that she stopped hanging her head and was not slow to debate a point or two with me. Still, I missed being the wise old grandpa. But the day she finally left, I got a moral reprieve. She got me alone in the tool shed and kissed me. It was not a child's kiss but the kiss of a woman and a friend, lingering but not passionate. "I didn't tell," she advised me. "because you'd get into trouble, big time. I guess I'm going to remember you for a long, long time though. Maybe forever. I think I know what you were talking about now, so I'll wait until I find a guy who's like that prince in the story. Maybe I can write to you sometime, okay?" That made my guilt worth it. I had the sure feeling that nobody would ever give her a runaround again. She gave me a heartbreaking, golden smile; precious coin for my treasure chest of memories. Then I watched her walk away, shoulders up, hips swaying slightly, full of her power, looking more like a woman than a child. I suddenly realized that throughout all of it, she had at her core, owned that ancient and very practical wisdom that is the essence of a good woman. Instead of laughing and destroying an old man's fantasies of youth, she had given them life. Legally, perhaps morally, I had done wrong by taking from a willing young girl. Nevertheless, she in turn had given me something I needed that made me finally complete. After that, I kept the memories of her - my last lover - jealously close, content to hold them warmly against the cold winds of age, just like any old man should. ***