I woke before her.
During my four years in the Air Force, well, my three years in northern Japan as a communications analyst, I had done what we called "trick work." The listening post to which I was assigned operated 24/7/365, as they say. To staff it, we worked rotating shifts. In good military phonetics, the shifts were designated "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta." I was on the "Delta Flight." In the Air Force, everything was a "flight," so, of course, we called it "Dawg Flight." Shifts rotated so that you worked seven-to-three day shifts for four days, had a day off, three-to-eleven swing shifts for four days, had a day off, and eleven-to-seven mid shifts for four days. Then we had four days off.
The reason I mention this is that my circadian system was left confused, a condition from which I still suffer. I would often wake after a two- or three-hour "nap" and have trouble getting to sleep.
So, I woke before her, but I had no interest in trying to fall back asleep.
I just watched her sleep and sent a silent "thank you" to Marty for my "blind date."
With her muscles slack in sleep, there was no doubt that I lay beside a senior citizen. I won't call her an "old woman," because those two words together have a connotation of, well, that witch we all saw when we watched
Snow White
, the cartoon, with the oversized nose complete with wart, the prominent chin, the buggy eyes, and the oversized hanging ears. My Estelle, and I was already thinking of her as "my" Estelle, was far from that, but I knew she had her Medicare card, so there was no doubt that she was, well, "senior."
Her carefully coiffed hair was a tangled mess. When I touched it, careful to not wake her, it was stiff from the mousse or pomade or serum or whatever she used, along with what felt like multiple coats of hairspray. The stray thought passed through my mind that it would be interesting to see how she got that mess untangled.
Her forehead was deeply lined, and in the relaxation of sleep, even that thin pad of fat couldn't keep it smooth. Her makeup was mostly gone, and where any remained, it was smeared. The last traces of her eyeshadow and eyeliner were faded, and a dark line of mascara or eyeliner had formed along the crease of her nostril. There was a bit of crust in the corner of her eye, the residue of her tear ducts and mucus membranes as they accomplished their job of keeping dust and grit from tender eye surfaces. Her nose had run a little, leaving another crust around the bottom of her nostrils. Her lips were parted slightly, and she was drooling, a wet line from the corner of her mouth ran to the wet spot on the pillow case.
I smiled as she snored, a loud, bubbling snore, and smacked her lips before settling back into her sleep. Maybe her dreams were of me, and she wanted to get back to them.
Okay, she was an old woman. But she was a pretty old woman.
So I lay there, watching her sleep, and wondering if maybe the notion of love at first sight wasn't bullshit after all.
I mean, well, look.
It had certainly been like at first sight. I liked the way she looked. I enjoyed her conversation. I liked her quick wit and bright mind.
And it had damn certainly been lust at first sight. She was as passionate as a pubescent teenager. More importantly, she was as skilled as a Japanese Geisha.
And as I watched her sleep, I felt something unfamiliar. Call it tenderness. I wanted to kiss her cheek, not roll her onto her back. And it hit me that it might actually
be
love.
So I watched her sleep. Hell, I watched her sleep until my damn arm, the one my chin was propped on, went to sleep and I had to stretch out, my cheek sharing her pillow, our lips so close they touched with each tiny movement.
I guess I slept, which surprised me.
I guess I felt that comfortable and safe.
I woke to the sensation of a spider crawling across my cheek. When I opened my eyes, I saw hers close enough that they filled my field of view.
"You're still here," she said, her voice morning-husky.
"Say it," I said.
Her eyes got big.
"David," she said.
I held her eyes.
"Say it," I said.
Her eyes overflowed.
She held my eyes for a long ten count, her tears slowly making tracks down her cheeks, her nose starting to run.
She kissed me, suddenly and hard, a sloppy, snotty, hard, almost desperate kiss.
A good kiss.
She squirmed in that way a woman can, and molded her body to mine. I could feel her breasts and her belly against me as she held the kiss.
She held the kiss as she pushed me back, her hand on my shoulder, and straddled me.
She held the kiss as she worked her hips, rocking to find alignment and then accepting me into her body.
She broke the kiss finally, pushed herself up to look down at me, and held that position, showing an odd athleticism.
"I think I
could
fall in love with you," she said, "but that's the best I can do for now."
"Well," I said, smiling, finding her breasts with my hands, tugging her nipples gently, "I guess that'll have to do for now."
"And you?" she asked, smiling and holding still now.
"Oh, I'm
certain
I could fall in love with you," I said.
She smiled and kissed me.
"That'll do," she said, and went wild. Her hips were thrusting, demanding, almost desperate. Her kisses were hard, almost painful.
She came. It was sudden, hot, and very wet, accompanied by a gasp and her nails digging almost painfully into the round ball of my shoulder muscles.
She held still in the rigidity of her ecstasy for several seconds. Her muscles were so tense under the thin, soft pad of fat that I wondered about cramps. But then she gasped a loud intake of breath and pushed herself up until she was in the classic cowgirl position, impaled on my erection, her legs spread, her back straight, and on her face was a happy smile.
I started to say something, but she touched my lips, stopping me.
I smiled back, lay back, and watched. Hell, I figured it was her show. And it turned out I was exactly right. It WAS a show.
She smiled, did that thing only a woman can truly pull off, running her fingers through her hair, tugging past her tangles, laced her fingers behind her head, and began singing Natalie Wood's song from
Gypsy
while setting up a good bump and grind.
"Let me," she began, ending the first phrase with a gentle twitch of her hips to the right, "entertain you," she sang in a soft, breathy voice, and twitched her hips to the left.
As the song went on, and as near as I can tell, she had every word, although I've only seen the movie twice, so I can't be certain of that. And an amazing thing happened. Her age became, at once, more and less obvious.
She was young, maybe a gymnast past her prime, deep into her 20s, with the way her body moved. Her muscle control was flawless, and she seemed to be able to move any part of her body independently. Her smile was the happy smile only the young can really pull off, although I found the appliance white teeth a bit off-putting. When she stretched, keeping the beat of her song, she was as flexible as any cheerleader.
She was old. There was no hiding the stretch marks across the tops of her breasts, the universal sign of a woman with large breasts who had breastfed at least one baby. In that position, with her fingers interlaced behind her head, the incipient bat wings of her upper arms, with their own stretch marks combined with the wrinkles and a couple of now-visible skin tags in her armpits, showed her two-thirds of a century. Her breasts swayed in an interesting way, almost flopping as the tempo of her song sped up. They were full but dramatically fallen, and her pink areolas had tightened with her dance, putting the oversized love bumps, the Montgomery glands that some women have in abundance, very much on display.
She stopped, suddenly, her breath catching and a rush of her hot nectar wetting my balls, and resumed her dance.
I wanted to say something, but I thought she would prefer silence, so I just watched.
I wanted to say, "You're beautiful."
