I was raised in a small rural town in Scotland. I had quite a good life, albeit parochial and lonely. It did not help that I was plain and dowdy, certainly not pretty or sought after. As a teenager, I was the wall flower left guarding the handbags, whilst the other girls danced the night away. Time passed by, they found partners and began to form close relationships. I became more and more uncomfortable, like a gooseberry, when invited to come along on nights out with them. I knew they did not really want me around but felt obliged to ask. Eventually, I started making excuses, stopped going out and settled into a solitary life.
In those days, girls left on the shelf had few options. They had to have a good job. Locally, there were very few possibilities and these were as domestics or cleaners. Not my forte at all. I, therefore, moved to the city and took on a junior administration position at a development company. I have been there for forty-five years and worked my way up to Senior Projects Manager. My career was productive and rewarding, but the lack of a soulmate or family of my own left an emptiness. Colleagues often remarked that I was so lucky to be free with no commitments, but it wasn't true. I was old and lonely.
Two years ago, a young man bought the house next door. George was Facilities Manager at a Biotech company. He was thirty-three, single, athletic and handsome. He always seemed to be busy, rushing off to work at all hours. Other than an occasional 'hello' in passing, we did not meet during the first month. Then, one day I was working in my garden when he came back from a run. He looked over the hedge and asked if he could help. I said that I was struggling clear a large patch of weeds and would be glad to have extra hands. Within a short time, the area I had worked on for so long was clear. That broke the ice. We sat and chatted for hours and had a meal together.
George was from the South of England but had been posted up here three years ago to set up a new research facility for the company. Although it was meant to be a short-term position, he had fallen in love with the area and decided to settle down here, traveling south on the occasions that he had to be at company headquarters. He had relationships in his late teens and twenties, but none that lasted. The breakup of the last had been particularly bad. From then, he concentrated on his job and rose rapidly to his present position.
I was amazed that he was telling me all this but glad he felt comfortable enough to do so. I was sad that he had decided to be a singleton. It is not the good deal that is often inferred. Also, he was good-looking, courteous, hard-working and a good companion. He would have been a great catch. I even had the fleeting thought that it was a pity I was not thirty years younger, but I would never have had a chance anyway. From then on, we became good neighbors. He would come around once or twice a week to check that all was okay and see if there were any little jobs needing to be done.
I became more and more at ease with George over the following months. So, when he came in one day to find me in floods of tears, I felt I could tell him what was wrong. Things had been going badly at work for a couple of months, putting me under a lot of stress and making me feel fragile and down. Over a couple of weeks, several members of staff had come in with their new babies. They looked so happy and proud as everyone gathered around and billed and cooed. I felt completely on the outside again and it had just hammered home to me how sad and lonely I had become. Life was flying past and I had nothing to show for it. George was trying to calm me, when I just blurted out "I am not even a proper woman, I have never been with a man, I am a sixty-five-year-old virgin". He was shocked. I had not talked about my private life and he had assumed that like him I had relationship problems earlier in life and decided it was better to be single.
The tears continued to pour, enough to soak George's shirt. In my distress, I had not realized he was holding me close to console me. I pulled away, saying I was sorry.
"That is okay. Dry your tears and compose yourself. I will change my shirt and then we can have a long talk about this."
I was ashamed to have broken down because I prided myself on being in control. That brought on the tears again. George came back, got me some tissues and we started to chat. He did not beat about the bush. Your view that 'you are not a proper woman' is gnawing away all the time and badly affecting you.
I blushed for the first time in many years but admitted that it was an issue. "I have been ignoring it for so long. It is a relief even just to talk about it. There have even been times recently when I have considered using a male escort to lift this albatross off my back, but I don't know how to I could arrange that."
George was so taken aback that he sat there in silence for several minutes, but finally clasped my hands and said, "No, that is not the answer, in fact, it would be very risky and dangerous in many ways for you. Let me think about this. It is late, so you should go get some rest and we can talk again tomorrow." He went off home, I went to bed and slept through to morning.
George had not appeared by midday, so I went looking for him and found him asleep at his computer. I woke him to check that he was okay. He said that he could not sleep last night and had decided to some research on the internet. Exhaustion had finally kicked in and he had fallen asleep in the early morning, but not before he found the information he was looking for and coming up with a plan.
He was very quiet whilst we ate lunch, but then explained that he had been searching for information on sex and the elderly. "If you filter out the fairy stories about the sixty-eighty years-olds going at it like rabbits, you come down to a few well-documented studies that show many couples of that age still regularly make love. Also, there are credible cases of women that did it for the first time in their sixties. A key thing that all emphasize is that the couples must be close, caring and at ease with each other for it to be good. If not, the experience can be very bad and physically and mentally damaging."
I started to cry again. "There is no hope for me then."
At that, George came over to me and kissed me lightly on the lips. My heart missed a beat when he said, "Shush, I have an idea. It will take some time, but if you want I will help you."
My knees almost went to jelly. "Are you proposing to make love to me?"
"Yes, that is the eventual aim, but we have a lot to do before that can happen. We need to become a couple. Join me on the sofa, if you want to start now."
I almost skipped over to it, he took me in his arms and gave me a long lingering kiss. He released me, but I pulled him back and planted a kiss on him. This was so good. We smooched on and off all afternoon and late into the night. He really took my breath away, but he was also a good teacher and I was giving in equal measure by the end of the day. My head was in a spin of new sensations and emotions. I was reluctant to stop in case the moment was lost forever, but I slept so well that night.
Next morning seemed to drag on forever, I was on tenterhooks until George came over at midday. I practically pounced on him and we were soon making out on the couch as before. He started to kiss me on the shoulders and neck. This was good. I felt his hand move up towards my breast, but I tensed up and brushed it away.
"I am really sorry. I did not mean to do that."
Bless him, he said he was not surprised. "For most of your life, you have had little physical contact with anyone. Your mind and body reacted instinctively against my invasion of your space. Imagine what would have happened if I had tried something even more intimate."
