At Seventy

Author's Note: Your feedback is important to me. I cannot improve as a writer if you are not willing to give constructive feedback. This story is very different from my other submissions. I hope you enjoy!

She was sitting on the porch swing drinking her morning tea. It was a beautiful morning in May of her seventieth year. May was always her favorite month. The sun was warm, but there was still a slight chill in the morning air. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the heat of the sun on her face.

She could hear the din of the riding lawn mower in the back yard. Her husband of fifty years was mowing the lawn for the first time this year. The sweet smell of fresh cut grass began to fill the air.

She opened her eyes as her man, sitting high on the riding mower, rounded the corner and passed by. His attention was focused solely on the task at hand. If had noticed her sitting there in her nightgown and housecoat, he didn't acknowledge her presence. A few moments later, he turned the corner and once again disappeared.

Once again she closed her eyes. She pulled the nightgown and housecoat up, exposing her legs to the sun. A slight push of her foot propelled the swing backward. When the swing moved forward, a light breeze entered the open nightgown and brushed her naked crotch. The cool air on her sex startled her at first, but it also felt strangely wonderful.

A few minutes passed and once again her man rode past her. She opened her eyes, hoping that he would see her there exposing her lower half to him. He glanced in her direction, but just as quickly looked ahead.

Twenty years ago he would have slowed or stopped the mower and made a gesture for her to expose herself to him, but not for many years had he done that. She remembered how she rarely complied with such requests and when she did, she displayed annoyance. Today she would have been thrilled for the attention and she could not understand why she had reacted so in the past. Did he not find her appealing any more? Or had her reaction over the years stop him from asking.

Each forward movement of the swing pushed more chilled air between her thighs. She pulled her clothing higher, exposing more of herself to wonderful feeling, pretending it was his breath. Feelings she believed long dead slowly began to build. Could it be she was actually getting aroused? Twice more he rode past. He never looked in her direction.

Disappointed, she got up from the swing and went into the house. As she walked, she felt lithe in her stride. Entering her bedroom, she was drawn to the bottom drawer of her dresser. She pulled open the drawer, pushed some sweaters aside and removed an old shoebox.

Looking at the contents of the box, she remembered how she had protested whenever he pulled out the camera during one of their love making sessions. He had convinced her that someday she would be glad to have the reminders of their passions. "Someday" had come.

One by one she looked at the old Polaroids. Each documented a time of their life when passion ran wild. Their sex life had been wonderful, passionate and, at times, down right kinky up until ten or fifteen years ago. Though she could barely remember what she had eaten for lunch yesterday, she could clearly remember the time each photo had been taken.

The old photos heightened the feelings that the swing had awakened. But some weren't that old.

She came across one she had taken on his fiftieth birthday. He was tied, gagged and had a vibrator stuck in his anus. She remembered how much he enjoyed being tied up and "plugged in". The picture put a smile on her face. Yes, their love life had been quite active and varied. She tried to think back to when it had ended. It didn't end suddenly, but had tailed off over a couple of years. "Why?", she asked herself.

She knew the answer. No matter how many times he had told her how beautiful and sexy she was, she didn't think so. She looked at the woman in the photos and then looked into the mirror. It was hard to believe they were once both one and the same. She also remembered that she had always been unsatisfied with her body. When he had taken the pictures, she said she was fat. But she had never been fat and he had always told how beautiful she looked. In the foolishness of her youth, she failed to listen to him. Since she no longer considered herself as "sexy", she couldn't believe he could see her that way (despite his words). She began shutting herself down.

She looked at herself again in the mirror. If she could go back in time, she would feel different about herself. The thought changed her perception of the way she saw herself now. She would not make the mistake again. How silly she had been to allow such feelings to limit her then. He would have filled a truck with pictures and videos of her and him- had she let him. How many more momentos of their bliss would there be here today, invoking more pleasant memories?

Also, arthritis had, at times, made coitus painful and she had begun losing her natural lubricants. It also took longer for him to achieve enough arousal to penetrate her. Somewhere along the way they had, without discussion, decided it was no longer worth trying. They had relinquished their sex life to only memories and a few snapshots in a shoebox.

The last time he crawled into bed with her and tried to play, she quickly rebuffed him. That was when- six or seven years ago?

Picking up another photo, she studied it. It was of her giving him a blow job- an act she didn't perform very often, but when she did, it was most pleasurable for both. The next photo she looked at, she had taken. All it showed was the upper half of his face and her abdomen. His eyes were looking adoringly into the camera while his mouth was firmly pressed against her crotch and his tongue was tickling her most sensitive place. She remembered how much he enjoyed licking and sucking her sex, while his fingers probed the inner depths of her vagina and anus. For him, performing oral sex on her was a labor of love. Her memories had reminded her how good he was performing it. It often took a long time for her to achieve orgasm, but he didn't care- as long as, in the end, she attained the goal. The images were invoking powerful and beautiful memories.

Without realizing it, she had moved one of her hands between her legs and was gently caressing the little spot on the top of her vagina. Her nipples grew hard. Though dry at first, she soon felt moisture oozing from her inner well. That feeling of pleasure, she once so enjoyed, was still there!

At the very bottom of the box, she found the videotape. She had become furious when she discovered he had taped one of their most lurid sessions. She had demanded that he destroy it (and he promised he had), but there it was. She picked up the tape- now suddenly joyous he hadn't put it on a fire.

She went into the living room, and slipped the video into the VCR. She thought for a moment before turning on the machine. No, she couldn't watch this alone. Maybe they had been wrong to let it go away without a fight. Yes, the arthritis was still there and yes, it might take more time. The greatest irony was that now, they had plenty of time, but time was running out. And there was always Tylenol and KY Jelly.

She heard the lawn mower coming back around to the front of the house. Maybe he had it in him to love her one more time. This time she would make certain that he noticed her on the porch. She slid the housecoat off her shoulders, allowed it to puddle on the floor, and then she pulled the nightgown over her head. With a newfound sense of beauty and youth, she headed for the door. She couldn't turn back the hands of time, but she could use up the time left on the clock.

Do they still make film for that old camera?