I've been married for 38 years. My wife & I grew up in roughly two blocks of the same suburb, we shopped at the same bodega, ate lunch in the same park, & in all those years we never met each other. When I was 21 & in my second year of working at the family business I went to an advertising convention in a different city & that's where I met her. She was acting as the personal secretary for the head of sales for another company. She was 19, wearing a sensible white blouse & a green wool skirt. Her smile, with deep dimples, made me nervous to talk to her but somehow, I worked up the courage to ask her to dinner.
I knew immediately she was the woman for me. I even phoned Mom to tell her. Six months later we married in a small ceremony in that same local park where we kept missing each other. Fast forward & we have a lovely home, three wonderful grown children (two sons & a daughter) & five grandchildren. I wouldn't change my life for the world. I'm blessed & I know it. My wife is still my best friend. We've gone through rough patches (like everyone) but we still get on, we still make each other laugh & I still think she's as beautiful as the day we met.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that my life is lovely, I'm a very happy man. I wasn't looking for anything exciting to happen to me at this stage in my life. I wasn't yearning for anything, wasn't bored or restless. I was perfectly content. My wife is my favourite person, she still has beautiful dimples, we chat easily, we make love & we sleep happily beside each other every night. Our friends call us the 'clockwork couple' because we've been so dependable over the years.
A couple of years ago my daughter very generously gave me a voucher to a 'day spa' for Father's Day. I'd almost forgotten about it until a month later when Rosemary found it. At first I told her to use it but she insisted I should take advantage of it. She said it could be good for my dry skin & work stress. After a bit of encouragement & after she made the appointment in my name, I gave it a chance.
I'm not sure what I expected, perhaps a bunch of women with towels on their heads, getting their nails done. The reception area was white, with deep leather sofas, very swanky. The receptionist, or consultant I think they call them, ran through a menu of treatment options. She asked what type of service I was interested in, what my usual skincare regimen was. I was honest, except for a grocery store facial scrub & a perfume-free face cream my wife gets me to use, not much. I told her about my arthritis & the dry patches on my shoulders.
She suggested a lanolin massage for my hands & a 'coal tar treatment' for the psoriasis, then she handed me over to Elena, a Belgian girl who'd be my 'therapist'. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Elena had worked as an au pair for my eldest son's kids; helped my daughter-in-law with their twin girls. At first she didn't recognise me, which didn't offend me, we only met a few times. But after I mentioned the girls she connected the dots & exclaimed "of course, Mr Doyle!" & had been very polite, asking how the girls were doing at school, asking after my wife & the business.
It put me at ease, especially when we got to one of the 'therapy rooms' & I had to remove my shirt & singlet & lie down on a towel-covered bed. I felt nervous, even at 60 years old! I reminded myself that I'd worn less around the swimming pool, the kids even laughing at my trunks & telling me I should get new, baggier ones. But it feels very different being undressed at the pool compared to being alone in a well-lit room with a fresh young woman.
But Elena was wonderful, very personable. She started with the 'coal tar treatment', which I was relieved wasn't smelly or cold & included a fantastic massage of my back & shoulders. Then she had me sit up & worked on my hands, massaging & moisturising them. She even filed the nails a little. I have to say, it felt very nice to be pampered by a beautiful lady. Elena was 20, just a year older than my wife had been when we met but the comparison ended there. She had long dark hair, multiple earrings all the way up her left earlobe & was covered in tattoos (as so many young people are these days).
As I spoke about Rosemary's work raising money for teen homelessness, she started to undo the button of my jeans. I would have helped her but for the thick layer of moisturiser that had coated my hands. When she started to pull the zipper open it crossed my mind it might not be part of the skin treatment, but I couldn't even imagine there was another reason a girl (who was younger than my youngest child) would want to handle an old man's penis. Before my wife, I'd been a virgin & I'd been a faithful husband.