I'm 63. I don't exactly feel old, but I do feel lonely. Lately I've been feeling desperately lonely.
It had been fifteen years since my last divorce, and it had been a rather nasty one. She had been swept off her feet by her boss, and even though he was younger than I am, it was by not much.
Not that our marriage was doing particularly all that great as it was though. We were having sex less and less frequently, and even then it was not the best sex we'd had by a long shot.
At first I was very hurt by her leaving. Then I came to find out that I was not that hurt, as it dawned on me that she and I shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. She only wanted a "Daddy" to take care of her anyway.
Thank God, I'd never had children with either of my wives. That left me to pursue the Batchelor Life without regret. Although that quickly came to be very unwilling as well. I was 'gun-shy' about women after two divorces going straight to hell. It didn't help in my dating habits.
So here I am, in my early sixties, a lonely, embittered 'old man.' What chance did I have of finding anyone at my age?
Oh, I was still attracted to women all right. Young, Old, didn't matter. Being an 'old man,' I found myself attracted sometimes to even much, much younger women than most of society would think was acceptable.
And although I hadn't acted on it for almost forty years, I was once attracted to some men I met. Not many, but some. In particular was a very cute and very femme (at the time) Latino with long hair and a sweet smile. But that was back in my twenties. I hadn't 'dipped my wick in that pool,' ever since AIDS struck and took many of the Gay men that I had once know.
Being that lonely, embittered old man, I spent a lot of time reading online erotica on a particular website, including many stories of group sex to bide the time I didn't spend working. I began thinking about exploring the polyamorous community, perhaps finding in two or three other people, an outlet for my still very much there sexual urges, without getting too involved in the emotional side of thing.
I went online and found a local (I live in a Big City) polyamorous group that had "matchmaking services" for finding a poly pod. I decided, What the hell? and signed up, not knowing what I was getting myself into.
This "meet up" was going to be in a local bar in a part of town that was "up and coming," that I didn't feel too bad about going to. Hell, I might even meet an older woman there I might hit it off with, and find myself lucky.
"Ok, Boys and Girls," the "EmCEE (who was obviously flaming Gay) said. "Are you ready to be matched up with your Soulmates?"
OK. Just find me some people to fuck every once in a while, I almost said out loud.
"Look around you at all the Fabulous Flirty People that we're going to hand you over to go fly with!" Over the top much? I didn't really care.
Then 'he' called out the names of those of us that had been pre-selected to be in a pod together, and I raised my hand along with the three others that were supposed to be my 'Soulmates.'
We got together off to one side, and I was a little struck by the eclectic nature of the four of us.
I pointed silently towards the outdoor eating area, and everyone of our group agreed silently and we began going outdoors.
It wasn't what I would call a quiet space outdoors, as they still insisted on blaring music out of the speakers, even here. But it was better than indoors, will all of the noise there.
We found ourselves a nice niche area with a wraparound couch and a small round table in the middle of it, and we all slid into this booth. We were man woman man woman, so I slid in last.
Of course Jimmy was the first one to introduce himself. "Hi, I'm Jimmy," he said, "And I like sports, the outdoors and... well, the indoors sports as well!" he said, with a way too flaming flare.
"Just how old are you Jimmy?" the older woman seated with us with steel grey hair done in a bob about her shoulders asked. She looked to be my age, and although on the slender and not glamorously proportioned side... but she still looked nice.
"My name is Katie, by the way," she told us.
"Oh, I'm the youngster of the group, fer sure," Jimmy replied. "I'm only thirty-five." And yes, I thought. Flaming Gay. Not exactly someone that would be interested in women. That was a bad sign for me.
"I'm Sharon," the other woman said, "And I'm fifty-three. I guess that means I'm going to be in the middle a lot," she joked. She seemed to be good humored, but I caught a side glance that she had a Jimmy, telling me she had the same kind of questions that I had about him.
"I'm Dean." I told the group. "And I guess you probably know that I'm on the other side of the age equation from Jimmy. I'm sixty-three."
I could see that Katie was not exactly going to be forthcoming about her age. She looked uncomfortable about declaring that.
But Jimmy turned to her and gave her a playfully dirty look. "We've all declared how old we are. Why don't you? I mean, after all. If we're going to be--" and he leaned into the center of our group and stage whispered, "Intimate. It's gong to come out sooner or later." He gave her a smirk, and I couldn't help myself, but laughed at his antics. This is going to be interesting, I thought.
Katie just gave him a dirty look instead. "I don't think my age is... particularly relevant. You know I'm on the older side." And returning a glare to Jimmy, said, "You don't have a problem with that, do you Jimmy?" she challenged.
"Just as long as you're not too 'old' in the sack," he smirked.
"Oh, I don't think you'll have a problem with that, honey," she said, with her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Oh-kay," I said, barely under my breath.
"And you, Dean. Are you a straight arrow? Or are you looking at both 'targets' in this little 'arrangement'?" he asked with a lascivious grin.
"That all depends," I gave back to him with a playfully dirty look. "Are you really interested in Katie and Sharon? Or is it just me?"
"TouchΓ©," was all he said. Giving me a not so playfully dirty look in return, he continues with, "I like to play both ways."
I looked at both Katie and then Sharon, and they both looked at me with an equally doubtful look our their faces. Obviously they were wondering the same thing I was.