"Auburn and curly, you say?"
"Yes," I answer after a moment, after the directness and shock had dissipated, both embarrassed and being turned onābut trying just to convey the embarrassed part. I'd played tennis with our new, young neighbor, and, the day being hot and wanting to be friendly to the new guy on the block, I'd readily agreed to go home with him to his cliffside house on the ridge above our house and to take a swim in his pool.
"Yes, auburn. Most of us gray from the top down. As you'll probably find out." I had meant it as a joke. But it had been delivered nervously, and his youthful smile told me that he thought he was as invincible as I had felt at his age.
I'd had my flings with men back in my daytime TV acting days, but not much of anything in recent years. I'd settled in well with Marge, used my earnings to establish a comfortable, normalāsafeālife. And I thought that part of my life was just something from the past, gone and put to rest. It was a shock how quickly it all could come back to me. Hank. Mostly Hank. My first. When he was about my age and I was about Jeff's age, as a matter of fact. Interesting that.
I'd been surprised when Jeff invited me to play tennis. He was half my age and was so handsome and outgoing that I thought he'd have no trouble finding partnersāfor anything he wanted to do, female or male. He reminded me of the way I was at his age. Young, strong, confident. I could have anyone I wanted in those days too. But I was attracted to Hank. Gray-haired, handsome Hank, who played the "all-knowing" family doctor on my first television show. Maybe I thought concentrating on the seeming unattainable would blank out my feelings, help make me ignore what turned me on.
I think I impressed Jeff when I beat him in straight sets. I'd kept in shape. Gray didn't mean decrepit.
"You know, I watched you on the television when I was a child, and I think I was in love with you," Jeff was saying. I had stretched out on my back on a lounger after swimming in his pool and his was sitting beside my hips, his arm extended over me. I wasn't going anywhere until/unless he moved.
"Or maybe it was just lust," he continued and flashed me a really, really friendly smile. He told me how attractive my gray hair was and that he had noticed the mix of auburn coloring among my chest matting. That's what had led to his question of what color my pubes were. Forward and suggestive, certainly, but it had been successful in getting my attention and piquing my interest, surfacing old feelings. I'd convinced myself that part of my life was over. I obviously was wrong. At least my dick thought so; it was straining at the tight material of the bathing suit.