Please just call me Ed. I am a 51-year-old man, divorced and out of shape. Both of those things were not where I thought I would find myself at this point in my life. I am an industrial designer whose trajectory would have, in my early 30s, led me to design cars, but my divorce and following a series of steps knocked me off that route.
Now my design is limited to breaking down other, younger people's furniture designs into convenient boxes for shipping.
I cannot blame anyone but myself for those changes. Only recently, after ten years of getting up in a tiny apartment in a suburb, I stopped punishing myself. I didn't forgive myself; I simply made peace with the lack of things I was capable of. This was me. I stopped asking myself to choose whether I liked it or not.
So my days now were a very loose routine. I awoke at 5:30 am and sat in bed. I often would find myself looking at some area of Reddit, which would lead me to some picture of a woman fucking, pulling down her pants and showing me her ass, or just a good round ass. It was enough for me. By 6 am, I was up and hating myself for jerking off. I berate myself at the frequency of that habit. It probably being some part of the reason Lucille divorced me. Not because of my doing it but how I conditioned my body to cum in seconds with her. Of course, I'd create some overly complicated plan for me to stop jerking off, swearing to never do it again. Only to find me on some lonely night alone and needing some fulfillment. This cycle, my heart lecturing, yelling, and begging my tone-deaf and jaded mind to stop bad habits, happened every day and lasted until right around coffee.
I listened to Bossa Nova over coffee, yogurt, and granola. I am acutely aware that my age is present in my diet. The granola and yogurt are suitable for my stomach and colon. I often wonder why I keep an old box of my children's cereal on a top shelf. They are older now, and visitation rights are more loosely applied now that they can make their own decisions. I look at the box sometimes and think if I should throw it away or try to finish it myself over the weekend. It's still there.
After a shower and getting dressed, I drove to work. I include this bit because driving to work was my moment for me. The trip to work from my apartment was almost an hour, but I listened to audiobooks, could be safe and secluded in the warm thrum of the car, alone with my thoughts, dreams, and plans for what was, what I thought, a future that was behind me.
Depressed yet? Don't be. I read once that men in their 50s are happier, and women become depressed. I think that is changing. In one series of car rides to work, I reasoned the source of that data point was because men, until their 50s, pursued their careers, prioritized work, and being cavalier with their friends and significant others. In their 50s, they'd submit to any survey or questionnaire in the world that showed they were satisfied and happy with their life choices. Why confess it was all a mistake now? From the perspective of that test, married women found life in their 50s was unlived. Had they been married, their needs had been deprioritized in support of their husbands and "family." In their 50s, single and divorced women began to live. Life is about owning or choices or leaving it all behind.
At least for me, in reality, every man in his 50s realizes that all of his plans, choices, and dreams were out of his control. His response of 'being happy' to the surveyor was not from some magical sense of achievement - as a king would look out across his kingdom with pride at what has been conquered - but gratitude; bullets were dodged. Choices others made brought him the ability to afford a bagful of groceries, cable, and rent. I am happy because I was lucky. I accepted that I would not stick my head out of the hole I was in lest Fate would take another swipe. I would even fill in the random questionnaire saying that I was happy. I would dig the remaining seven feet down for however long I needed.
It was Spring where I lived, and I enjoyed the flowers, trees, and people I saw on the drive to work. My route wound through quaint back streets and bedroom communities whose inhabitants were people like me, starting their days jogging or a brisk walk.
The first time I saw her, she was wearing shiny spandex and walking a small dog. The spandex leggings had a cloud pattern, and she had a broad, generous ass that was accentuated by the seam that ran up between the cheeks of her ass.
It was her ass that caught me. I found myself aroused by a body I had only seen on my phone, in my bed, and alone before. Here were the curves and clefts that I admired privately, out tremoring slightly as they walked down the sidewalk.
I stopped myself from slowing down; there were cars behind me as well, and I thought it classes and just slightly above the behavior of a disgusting stalker to break and continue to look. If she saw a fat, somewhat balding man slowing down his car and leering at her - any possible chance of anything ever happening would be lost. But at work, I could not get her and her lovely perfect ass out of my head.
