The year is 2069. It's late December, right after Christmas...
"Don! How are you my friend? Get yourself some new wheels?"
"Mikey! I'm great, buddy. No, it's an old one my dad used. Nice though. Got a handbrake, and it folds up slicker than shit."
Don shuffled over to the dusty old kitchen table in Mike's sunroom. He held on tight to his rolling walker as he pivoted his aging, awkward looking legs onto the chair.
"How's the hip?" Mike asked.
"It's comin' along, but it'll never be the same. They'll perfect these artificial sons-o-bitches the year after I die."
"Ha!" Mike chuckled. "That's what my mother said forty years ago. They workin' the shit outta you in rehab like they did me?"
"Ugh!" Don moaned. "If it wasn't for one young nurse there I'd never go back."
"Really? Did you give her your number?"
"Better. She gave me a sponge bath and I hardened up like a fuckin' fifty-year-old."
"You dog!" Mike laughed. "Tell me about her. Wait, let me get some beers. Hold that thought."
Mike fumbled for his cane, stood up with a nearly silent groan and shuffled across the floor to the kitchen. He came back with an old lunchbox cooler filled with a six-pack of beer bottles and some ice cubes. He sat down across from Don at the table.
"You were saying?" he said, handing Don an ice-cold bottle. "What color's her hair?"
"Blonde. It's dyed. She's got those dark roots and dark eyebrows. Reminds me of Madonna. Remember her?"
"Sure. My dad was into her. Your girl got the body, too?"
"Oh yeah, she's got it all. Melanie's her name."
"Nice," Mike said, looking like he was picturing her in his mind. "Tell her you need a ride over here next week. We can entertain her."
"Sorry Mikey. If she'd be into that I'd keep her for myself."
"Yeah," Mike said. "I know what you mean. I don't know if I could handle a threeway anyway. Maybe when I was younger."
"You never have?" Don asked.
"Nope. You?"
"Yeah. We've never talked about this, have we? Well my friend, you're in for some stories, if you're game."
"I'm always game. But don't skip over the good stuff. First you gotta tell me about Blonde Melanie Madonna. What'd she do when she saw your boner?"
"She cleaned it," Don smiled. "Nice and slow."
Mike shook his head and smiled. "You fuckin' dog."
"So, you remember my Sarah," Don said. "I don't tell everybody this, but she and I were part of the original Sexuals. Back in, oh, 2029 or, no, 2030 I guess it was. I knew her way before that, though."
Mike looked surprised. "So you know Kelsey Lowe?"
"Oh yeah, me and Sarah went to high school with her. She was Kelsey Jonston back then."
"Holy shit, Don! Why didn't you ever tell me you knew her? She's a freakin' legend!"
"Yeah. Sorry, it just never came up, I guess. I met you when our wives were in the hospital. We all had a lot on our minds," Don said, looking sad. "Yeah, it just never came up, I guess."
"So were you and Sarah both...Sexuals?"
"Yeah, we were both part of the movement. We marched in Washington with Kelsey and her husband Austin. Do you remember that? I don't know how much you paid attention to it all."
"Sure, I remember," Mike said. "My wife was all wound up against it. She wanted to march in opposition, but, hell, I had no problem with it all."
"Yeah, it was some crazy shit back then," Don said. "I lost my job over it when they found out I was on the side of the Sexuals. And my boss didn't even know I was part of Kelsey's core group. He would have
really
freaked if he'd known that. Hard to believe that was forty years ago."
"I met her once," Mike said. "Must be twenty-five or more years ago, at a benefit for the museum downtown. She was the best looking fifty-year-old I've ever seen in my life."
"Was she dressed?" Don smirked.
"Nothin' on top, no. She had a bowtie choker around her neck, what looked like a vintage skirt from the hippy days a hundred years ago, and some little leather sandals. I can still see her tits in my mind like it was yesterday..."
"Yeah, there aren't enough tits in the world like Kelsey's. I swear to God those beauties single handedly got the movement across," Don smiled. "I mean, who'd vote against seeing those out in the world?"
"Good thing we had a male president at the time. Do you think that helped?"
"Oh, I don't know," Don said, looking unconvinced. "Austin was a piece of eye candy back in those days. Me and the other guys weren't too bad ourselves. I shouldn't tell you this, but Kelsey organized a dinner meeting with some Senators right before the vote. There were more women Senators than men, just like now. We all ended up in Kelsey's hotel suite, and, let's just say...that party went long into the night."
"Holy shit!" Mike said. "You really were right in the middle of it all!"
"I shouldn't give away names or anything, but lets just say a certain brunette Senator from New England made more sweet noise than just about any woman I've ever heard in my life. Me and Austin wrung her out for over an hour. I can still hear her singin'..."
"Jesus!" Mike said. He set his empty beer bottle down on the table next to Don's and cracked open two cold ones. "I'll be honest with you, at the time I thought you all were crazy for pushing the sex part of the legislation, instead of just the public nudity thing. Getting the government to legalize open marriage and family sex seemed nuts to me. It's a good thing all that Religious Right nonsense from our parent's days was fading out about then."
"That's just it," Don said. "Kelsey saw an opening. She knew it was time. She was always like that, manipulating things in subtle ways. She had this sixth sense, knowing just when to get someone into the lifestyle, and knowing just who needed the push. That's how she gamed Congress and the President like she did, and it's why she made such a great sex therapist. She and Austin started their sex therapy business before the Sexuals thing happened. They got into some trouble with it, got arrested for prostitution. That's when Kelsey and her mom and everybody started thinking about getting more than just nudity laws changed. But Kelsey didn't do that her whole life, you know. She started out as an artist."
"No shit? You know, I've often thought about reading one of the books about her. Maybe I should."
"Read her own autobiography. It's nice, it reads kinda like a memoir. I'm in there. They called me Donny back then."
"Shit, man! This is awesome. I didn't know I had a famous friend. So, you and Sarah, all your lives you were..."
"Sexuals? Yeah, but, of course we didn't call it that back then. Kelsey's mom coined that term. She was really the catalyst for everything. Kelsey was just a chip of the old block. And what a sexy old block it was."
"You knew her?"
"Kay? Oh, yeah!" Don said, his eyes lighting up. "She was smokin'! Her husband Bobby was a great guy, too. They used to have parties at their house that were just..." Don's eyes rolled as he thought back to all the wild times at the Jonston's house.
"So, knowing what little I do about Kelsey, you must have...fucked her, right?"
"Yeah, man. A hundred times maybe. Everybody was all over everybody back them. I'd put it the other way around, though. Most of those times,
she
fucked
me
."
"It's been decades since I've seen any of it," Mike said, "but that old porn she did, what was it, back in her college days? That was some hot stuff."
"That's her, man. That's all her. She didn't act. She just was."
Don took a big swig of beer and looked at Mike with twinkling eyes. "You wanna meet her? I mean I know you said you already did one time, but, she and Austin, they host a New Years Eve party every year. Lately it's at Jonston House. They live there now. Her two best friends are there now too, since after their husbands died."
"You know, I worked on that place, when I was an electrician," Mike said. "It was one of the last job sites I worked on. It was about ten years ago, I guess. Right before I retired."
"Ten years ago, so it was already open. Did you work on that last big addition they put on?"