Mabel, a retired professor of electrical engineering now seventy-four, had been a widow for over two decades.
Living alone, she didn't need the big five-bedroom house: she kept it mostly for her visitors. Today she had two, one long-planned, the other impromptu. Joan, her best friend for over fifty years, had arrived a couple of days ago for a three-week visit -- mostly to celebrate her eightieth birthday two days hence. Their friendship dated from when Joan -- then a PhD student -- had undergraduate Mabel as her student in an engineering math course.
These days, Joan was a functional widow - hubby had gone Alzheimer's a few years back and was now completely and permanently incommunicado: there was no real point in visiting him anymore. Joan, a math teacher, was mentally sharp as a tack.
In addition to Joan there was Mabel's other visitor was her only nephew, Andrew -- who had arrived unannounced this morning. A thirty-seven year old scientist, he traveled across country frequently, was welcome to drop in extemporaneously, and often did, under cover of Mabel's standing invitation.
Andrew's bag was still beside the kitchen door as Mabel did introductions. He and Joan had never met, but felt as if they knew one another well, since each had heard
in extenso
about the other from Mabel over the years. Sitting and chatting over coffee, Andrew had been instantly captivated by Joan's wit and charm. They quickly discovered a shared interest in fast repartee -- especially three-level puns larded with double-entendre and sexual innuendo.
When Joan and Mabel were talking to one-another, Andrew studied both women discreetly. Mabel --unfortunately - seemed the older -- mostly because she'd gained some un-needed weight, and her skin hadn't aged well: too much sun early in life. Weight notwithstanding, Mabel was actually in good condition -- she insisted on her daily hour or more of yoga, a fifty-year practice.
Another long-time yoga practitioner, Joan had fared better, aided by both genetics and her longstanding determination --not to call it obsession- to stay in good condition. She and Joan did their yoga together during every visit -- it was nice to have a partner.
Andrew watched as Joan got up for more coffee -- she moved with a subtly feline grace and smoothness due to five decades of dance atop the yoga. Although always an amateur she had, in fact, danced corps in a big professional production of CATS long ago. Joan was small, just short of tiny, about five two and one ten, light-boned, childless and slim hipped, with the gentlest pot-belly -- it was perceptible only when she was standing and completely relaxed, which she didn't let happen often.
Andrew was pleasantly surprised to see she still had a genuinely attractive bottom: unlike so many elders, she had no slightest trace of their common bowlegged flat-butted droopiness.
More details accumulated. She had piercing brilliant blue eyes, lovely facial and neck skin that befitted her age, but nicely so - parchment thin and carrying plenty of wrinkles that showed mostly when she smiled. Lips still full and attractive, with none of the creeping "old-lady" vertical simian lines. Not a dot of makeup anywhere, either. Only the backs of her hands fully agreed with her calendar age, but even there the age-spots were light and hadn't yet begun to coalesce. Beautiful, unusually white teeth, an asset she was inordinately proud of and which got very special care. No upper-arm wattles. No extra chins. No overly loose neck-skin.
Her long hair was purest silver, not a streak of color anywhere, and still looked soft and flexible and full-bodied. He shook his head mentally as he studied the hair -- she'd done one of those "women and their hair things" that men find so mystifying -- a tight bun, held improbably in place by a single lacquered chopstick. He wondered what it would look like if set free and floating, a special liking of his.
In toto, Andrew decided rather to his surprise that he found this woman extremely attractive despite their wide age-gap, a gap that inverted the usual arrangement for attraction. It didn't hurt a bit, either, that she was an incredible flirt and practiced on him almost non-stop.
After two hours of coffee, juice, pastries, and delightful conversation, Andrew's bag still sat beside the kitchen door. Mabel finally noticed it, jumped up and said "Andrew, Joan's in the number one room downstairs -- you get the other." She turned to Joan: "Of course that means you'll have to share the bath... I assume that's okay? It has two doors, you remember."
Joan said she could manage. Andrew knew the layout. The bath sat between the two relatively large, well-appointed guest rooms and had a door to each. The rooms had floor-to-ceiling window-walls that looked due east out into the garden.
Andrew disappeared downstairs with his bag: Joan and Mabel moved to the living room. Andrew re-appeared in a few minutes, in running gear. Mabel looked at him closely, up and down -- eighty or not, she appreciated a good male body. Andrew saw her appraisal, recognized that she had intentionally let him see it as part of her flirting, grinned at her, stuck his tongue out, said he'd be back in an hour. Then they could all do something about lunch. Light, preferably.
He returned as promised, sweaty and glowing, to find lunch on the table. Joan mentioned wistfully that she no longer ran -- walking yes, lots and fast, but running no. Some body parts were getting far too delicate, she was having a not-yet-obvious struggle with osteoporosis, and showed them the slight hump she was developing between her shoulder blades despite her efforts.
Andrew commiserated as best he could, then announced to Mabel's utter surprise that he had taken up yoga himself recently... and complained in turn about how much his runner's hamstrings interfered with everything yogic. Joan suggested that later, say well after a light supper, they should all do an hour of yoga together: maybe, she grinned, these two old women could give him some useful advice?
The third downstairs 'bedroom' was Mabel's dedicated yoga nook. Tiny, really nothing more than an oversized walk-in closet with no window and little ventilation -- but it had a ballet-barre, a big wall mirror, and good wooden floor. For one person it was fine: for two, marginal but adequate. For three it was a close fit, and all had to be both friendly and careful.
The women had done yoga together for decades, and had their routine. Andrew followed along as best he could: keeping up brought him into another good sweat pretty quickly -- about 80% of the strength in the room belonged to him, but the two ladies had about 95% of the total flexibility and balance. Many times when he was unable to even approximate a pose, the women would stop and help: in particular, Joan's touchings were frequent and uncompromising -- she was enjoying herself immensely.
So, for that matter, was Andrew. The ladies practiced in lycra swimsuits, fabric tight and thin enough to show more detail of underlying surfaces than they seemed aware of, but he knew not to believe that they were less than fully cognizant of their display.
Andrew's earlier, upstairs appraisal of Joan's fully-clothed bottom was obviously bang-on correct. It was quite pretty. The women's bare legs were a contrast -- Mabel's thighs had absorbed much of her added weight. Joan's legs were slender, the skin texture matching that of her face, lots of wrinkles at the bends, but no loose and flapping excess. The underlying muscles were obviously lean and firm -- particularly the calves. Nicely, her toenails hadn't gone old-people-ish. Joan's flexibility and overall strength and balance were an inspiration, and he told her so. She grinned at him. When he could do so covertly, he studied her upper body: she had small boobs, quite soft and of course flattened beneath the lycra. It was delightful and surprisingly erotic to watch their subtle shifts in shape and position as flesh and gravity and lycra argued with one another, came to a different détente for every pose.
He had to stop watching closely or he was going to lose concentration, which could be disastrous in such close quarters. Not only that, he could feel the first twinges of blood filling his cock, which astounded and amused him.
Those twinges only got worse during a final ten-minute pose -- namely corpse pose for relaxation -- aka 'shavasna'. The ladies lay with heads to the east, he lay between them with his head west. He was careful not to let his outstretched arms encounter Mabel's nearby legs: somehow, however, his forearm and Joan's calf wound up nestled cozily against one another. It wasn't clear who might have created that situation, but neither of them took umbrage, neither volunteered to initiate a breaking-off.
And the subtle undercurrent of sexual tension from mutual touchings and visual inspections had long since filled the room's humid air with strong overtones of male and female pheromones, a chemical stew thick enough to be actually perceptible, not merely subliminal, a chemistry actively engaging receptors deep in all three reptilian brain centers. It made his shavasana less than perfectly restful!
Later, at evening's end, after long conversations and a bottle of good merlot, Andrew and Joan said goodnight to Mabel and headed downstairs together. Joan called dibs on first shower. Joan's shower noises began, continued for some minutes, then changed to subtler toweling-off sounds. Andrew was lying on his bed clad only in his running shorts, propped on a pillow, reading. He held the book in one hand - the other was buried in his crotch, absently fondling. Joan popped her head around the door, peered at him. He jumped guiltily, draped the book over his lap in an utterly unsuccessful effort to cover his half-risen hardon.
Joan gave no outwards sign she noticed anything awry -- but her belly did some spectacular flips. "Your turn" she said. "I set out your towels. I think I'm going to just turn in, so I'll see you in the morning!"
Andrew nodded, said "I'll probably wait until morning for my shower... but thanks!"
Joan disappeared. Quiet reigned for a few minutes: Andrew read a bit, then turned off his light, slipped off his shorts, lay on his bed uncovered, idly playing with himself. He finally decided that he needed some relief from the erotic tension the yoga and the day's flirting had generated, and that he could be quiet enough if he were careful. But he had to pee first. He stood up -- the bed was a good one and completely silent. He didn't need the room lights, it was just after the rising of the full moon and its silvery-white light was streaming horizontally into the bedroom through the wall-window. He stepped to the bath, opened his door -- the oil he'd put on during an earlier visit still worked, and there was nary a sound from the hinges. The bathroom was dark inside, but light enough to see that Joan's door was about a foot ajar: her room lights were out as well. Not wanting to disturb Joan's sleep by making man-peeing noises, he sat down, tucked his half-hard cock between his legs and against the bowl surface. No splash, but peeing through a soft-on was always a bit of an adventure. The cool porcelain was somehow erotic and as his bladder emptied, his cock filled still more.
Having drained his bladder, being polite, he decided to delay flushing until morning. No point in bothering Joan. He stood: the carpet made his movement noiseless, but there was a rhythmic, just barely sensible sound coming from Joan's room. Curious, Andrew stepped to her door, slowly poked his head through.
He gaped: she was lying nude on the navy-blue sheets, face down, legs spread wide and pointed right at him. The horizontal moonlight made her into a silver object of complex curves and planes and inkjet shadows lying on an ebony field: the picture was breathtakingly sensual. She was lying atop one arm: between her legs he could see her fingers dancing.
