This story is based on a really early experience I had. It starts slowly, but that is the point – the time taken meant everything in terms of how I would come to define attractiveness in a man. Please stick with it and don't forget to vote and comment.
I suppose I never really thought about him in a sexual sense until that moment. He had been our neighbour on the other side of our road for about seven or eight years. He was always polite to my folks and unlike all the other adults who lived along the road, always had a nod and a wink for me as well as the time for an intelligent question or remark to accompany the greeting.
As I reached my own going out age, and heading for university we would quite often pass on our way in or out of our houses and enjoy a few words. He always seemed so genuine and to this day I know that he never meant anything more in his remarks.
He was married to a beautiful woman, though she was frosty as hell to me and seemed always in a bad mood. That said, they hadn't been married that long, and I could remember some pretty lively parties and after hours arrivals at his house when he was single.
Then there was that day, just after I had finished my exams and was in that halcyon period before university, where you are blessed with warm days and little obligation. I had a little summer job in the local newsagents, but just a few shifts a week, and on this day, nothing to do until the afternoon.
I decided to take a walk in the park just near my house and bumped into him out walking his dog. He ran his own business, so he was around at all sorts of hours when the regular wage slaves would have their noses to the corporate grindstone. I never really knew what it was he did, but he always had a smile on his face, so I guess he must have enjoyed it.
But this day was different. He looked a bit stressed, but still managed an easy smile when I approached. He asked if I wanted to walk round with them, and with nothing better to do I agreed. More to the point, I think he really wanted some company. As often as I saw him, he was mostly on his own and I think had quite a solitary life.
We talked while we walked, and yet despite a twenty year age difference, I never once felt any condescension in his tone. His conversation was interesting; his joy in my stories was obvious and as we walked I felt all of those waves and greetings over the years were consolidating into a recognisable friendship, given body during this first proper conversation. It was a friendship that was only ours, and with no other people influencing it or introducing us, we were equals in it.
Our walk lasted about an hour and in that time I found out much about him, as he did about me. His past had been an interesting one for someone who was still quite young himself. He had been a professional sportsman when he was younger, wrote articles and books as well as running his own business. His travel stories to Africa and Asia were amazing and I was left with the impression of a man who knew how he wanted to lead his life and had set it up accordingly.
It was only a few days afterwards that I reflected that he had not once mentioned his wife or family in his conversation. We parted with a pleasant smile and I can remember his final words - "Thanks for walking round with me, it was a true pleasure".
It was such a simple phrase, with its sincerity and honesty, but one that left me feeling so good about having been in his company. I drifted through that day, repeatedly coming back to the feeling I had had in his presence. When I got home after work it was almost a relief to be able to chat to my mother and casually drop into the conversation that I had walked with him earlier on. Her comment was that "Yes, he seems like a lovely bloke – always says hello and smiles". It was a mundane comment, but I seemed to need that approval.
Still I wasn't thinking of him in a sexual way. Not that I wasn't tuned into sex at that stage of my life. Quite the contrary – I was really popular with the boys and wasn't averse to stringing a couple along at once. I wasn't sleeping around, but I had done it enough times to have long forgotten my virginal state. I was looking good and had blossomed nicely over the previous year or two. I could pass in clubs as twenty one without any trouble, and had even been photographed out on the town as one of the 'in crowd' that you see in the glossy lifestyle magazines.
As for him, well he was late thirties, still in reasonable shape, but no Adonis. I often saw him in sports kit going to play football or to the gym, so he clearly tried to look after himself. He sported the first signs of that well worn look that men develop at the same time women start to look creased, and it suited him. I rarely saw him smartly dressed as his work was outdoors, but he wore that rugged fashion that looked natural on him even in his scruff. As I said, he was no Adonis, but decent enough looking, probably with hindsight what I would call handsome, rather than beautiful.
A few days went by and I couldn't seem to get him out of my mind. Every time I left the house I looked to see him. It was the same when I came in or was walking up the road. What seemed to be perpetuating it was that when I went out with my own dates and mates, the conversation seemed meaningless. Nobody ever seemed to get to the point, implicitly understand or make the acute observations that we had in our conversation that day. My dates seemed like little boys in men's bodies. I had discovered the true difference between boys and men.
About ten days later on the Friday morning, I saw him leaving the house but walking rather than taking the car. It was like I needed to spend some time with him again, so unthinking, I darted out of the house and as casually as possible 'bumped' into him outside.
"How are you?" was the simple happy greeting that he gave. I smiled and blustered a slightly shy response, saved from any awkwardness by his next question "I'm just walking down to the bank in the village – are you heading that way?"
Okay, so it wasn't planned but it had worked out. He seemed pretty contented just to stroll along with me and with my excuse that I just needed to stretch my legs, hence why I was happy to hang around while he did his banking then take the scenic and longer walk back through the park.