Josie

Josie is on the bed, ready for fun. She's looking up at me, on my side, smiling her smile.

Why she's on my side, I don't know. Is it my scent in the bedclothes, familiar to her after just a few months? I know her scent too, or should I say her scents? There are many. When it's Sunday morning, we're sleeping in, I spoon into her body. She nestles back against me, sleeping still. There's her scent, there in the nape of her neck, her hair. I breathe it in deeply, basking in it. Lying against her, breathing her in, it makes me love her even more. I feel overwhelmed by it. The luckiest man alive, thank God for her, thank God for her. She's with me, sleeping, with me, together, in love.

She has many scents, the perfumes she wears. Some days it's vanilla, other times cinnamon, sometimes something new. But it's always subtle, almost not there at all. It's as if she hints at it, not wanting me to be sure of it. Tantalizing me, smiling that smile of hers all the while, knowing what she does to me. Do you smell something today? No? You're not sure? You want to find out, don't you? Inviting, teasing me closer, to kiss her cheek, and there, above the button of her blouse, on the soft curve of her neck. Yes.

My favourite scent is when she's fresh out of the shower, talced, soft, clean, naked under her terry robe. Is it her code, a signal, her invitation? She's saying, yes. Come. I'm ready now, ready for you, for us together. I know it's how you like me. I know what it does for you. I know that when it does this to you, we will be partners in my pleasure. And she's right. She knows me, like she's inside my head when she's like this. We take our time, hold each other, talk quietly, kiss tenderly. She relaxes, I can feel her body melt into me. I feel desired, I feel her craving, not urgent, but sincere.

I revel in her scent, the feel of her soft skin, her slenderness. The look of her skin when she slowly opens the robe to frame her breasts, lets me lift it off her shoulders, lets it drop to the floor. I feel the breathtaking intimacy of skin on skin, so smooth. Touching her, gentle squeezes, tracing my fingertips over her lovely face, her breasts, her stomach. The perfect skin, so soft, on the inside of her thighs.

I love her fresh scent, her honey taste when I kiss her there, when I worship her there with my lips, my tongue She quivers, trembles in her pleasure, but the pleasure is for me as well. I kiss her there, gently probe her folds deeply with my tongue. I slide my tongue, broad and flat, from the bottom, slowly, stopping just below her bud. A light flick there, a pause, waiting for her arousal to crave it, then a slow circle where she has to have it, must have it. Another circle, a pause, drawing her lips between mine, teasing them, holding them there. Circling, pausing, long slow licks.

I love the sound of her soft sighs as she blossoms for me. I love how it builds in her, her breath shuddering, holding, her long sighs. I love her soft moans as she resigns herself to me. Soon their pitch rises, start into their rhythm, broken only by sudden intakes of breath as her arousal climbs, as I play with her. I build it up slowly with her, listening, feeling her cues, her responses. Taking her close, holding her there, holding her as her craving becomes insistent, irresistible. Kissing, probing, circling with my tongue, setting a rhythm, then taking it away, starting something new. My fingers are deep in her wetness as my tongue adores her pussy. My thumb softly, wetly circles below, not pushing in, but teasing. I feel her tension build, her quivers telling me when she is close, prolonging, prolonging, holding her at her peak. She can't control it anymore. I decide it, decide when she can have it, when to take her over the precipice. Wait, wait, her body is taut steel. Wait...

It begins for her, the blessed searing spasm. Her body releases and she comes, a groan that would be pain if it weren't exquisite pleasure. We are together in it. We ride her wild waves, together, thrilling in them, enjoying every convulsion, the glorious pauses between. We are together, together as her coming subsides, longer pauses between her pulses, the last one always a surprise, seconds after we think she is done, her body having its last laugh.

When it all began for us last April, she shook me up, rearranged my world. She was beyond a fantasy, unreal, not the way the world works. I didn't trust it, felt it was a cruel trick that would hurt me in the end. It was the age difference that worried me.

What does she see, I wonder, more than twenty years between us. Her whole life is ahead of her. There is time for her dreams, time for mistakes, so many exciting ways for her to go that she must thrill at the possibilities.

For me, for all men my age, there is a time, a bad time, when we realize we're closer to the end than the beginning. Like a dying fire, we struggle with it, trying to convince ourselves that it's not true, that we are what we once were. But the evidence accumulates, and then comes resignation, acceptance of defeat. There are no NHL scouts in the stands in our pickup hockey games. The career is comfortable enough, but it's topped out. We aren't going to sail around the world, aren't going to write the great novel. We are ordinary, will remain ordinary. There is less drive for physical intimacy, less sensation when we have it, trouble getting hard, staying hard.

The hardest part is recognizing that the young beauties, the sleek gazelles, are no longer for us, the middle-aged. They will never be interested in us ever again. No, they are for the young lions. We watch them, see them flirt with horny, brash youngsters, fit and trim. They spend an hour in front of the mirror every morning but these boys haven't a clue, haven't a clue. We see them on the hunt, seeking sex, not love. And the worst, we picture young couples closing the door on the bedroom as the clothes fly, leaving us out, forever. For us, those days are gone and they aren't coming back.

But Josie shattered that reality, what I thought was my reality. We met on the street on a beautiful late-March Saturday, a chance encounter. She was with her friend Jenn a former student. She waited after we were introduced, standing back, watching as my handshake with Jenn turned into a big arms-around hug. She was quiet and patient as Jenn and I caught up, talked about my colleagues, her teachers, some of them retired, some still going strong. Both of us glad to see each other again after a few years. There was another hug, goodbye this time, and Josie watched it. Our eyes met and held, a moment, and then she smiled her smile.

What was that, I thought. There was something there, in her eyes, I was sure, but I couldn't read it. It's not her reaction to Jenn and me, I thought, as her mouth had widened, lips together, eyes locked onto mine. Her unknown thoughts. Josie's unknowable thoughts.

Jenn released me and I returned into the world. Smiling, saying the right things, goodbye. But inside, slapping myself. No. No, stupid man, you are imagining it, the fantasy of a fifty year old fool. The young gazelles, those days are over.

I couldn't stop my thoughts of her, my uncertainty, the image of her eyes hovering in my mind. Our eyes had locked, her smile, was it real, was it really there?

On Monday, beyond belief, her call came, my number at the College easy for her to find. As if she knew, knew that I couldn't forget the moment between us, she said only, It's Josie calling. No reminder, no re-introduction, no playing back of the scene on the street with Jenn. I remembered it all too, remembered her, remembered her eyes, the mystery of her smile. I could picture her face in my mind, hadn't shaken it since her eyes had been on me. And here she was on the line, making conversation. What do you teach? How long have you been doing that? Do you like it? What about your spare time? My mind raced at this, wondering where she was going, why she had called. I assumed she was building up to something having to do with her friend Jenn, maybe to ask a favour. Why wouldn't she just ask?

But then, there were the words so completely unexpected. I'd like it if we could get together sometime, for coffee, maybe for lunch. It wasn't a question, would you like to? No, it was, I'd like it if, a statement, to me it was much more than a statement, it was her disclosure. An invitation, yes, but it was how she said it, laying it out for me, letting me see it, her intention, her interest, her interest in me.

I was stunned. It shook me, disoriented me, shoved aside my concept of how it all was. My middle-aged resignation, too many years of feeling undesired, it was all shattered in an instant by her words. She says that I didn't answer for long seconds. She says that she laughed at that, at her effect on me, her power over me.

I remember an explosion of chaos in my mind, nonsensical thoughts. This was Jenn was putting her up to a joke. How cruel! What had I done to deserve it anyway? Jenn and I got on well. And this wasn't something Jenn would do anyway. Maybe Josie had been my student too, teasing me because I had forgotten her, a prank call. But no, that would be absurd. And I would never forget that face, that smile.

I felt flattered, flustered, embarrassed. Incredibly, I felt amused, not by the absurdity of a young woman's approach to a middle-aged man, but at the vacuum of my forgetfulness, my inability to respond to her. How in the patterns of my life I'd forgotten what it felt like to be the object of another person's attraction, forgotten what to say, what to do.

But in time, as I regained my bearings, as I felt the chaos flutter to the ground, the thought that settled in me was blessed gratitude for clear skies, for a future, for happiness in this world, for Josie.

I remember hearing my voice, amazed at what it said, disembodied. I remember how gentle it sounded, how calm it was, so different from the scrambled chaos in my mind moments before.

I'd really like that too, Josie, I said.

My memories from that first lunch are pristine. Like the electric thrill when I first saw her again as she strode toward me, her face lit up with sparkling eyes, a confident, eager smile. Like her surprising slenderness when we hugged on the street. The profile of her face as she swept past me through the door, lovely. And her scent, the now familiar vanilla, as I helped her with her overcoat. I remember the casual stylishness of her clothes that day, the jeans, fitting well, not too tight. The cream-coloured, blousy, long-sleeved shirt, tucked in. The deep V at her throat, her lovely collarbones, the delicate gold chain. I remember the warmth I felt when she reached across the table to touch my forearm, emphasizing her words.

Almost immediately, there was intimate connection, a wonderful, genuine closeness. She told me of her joyful times, her sadnesses too. We shared these, we listened to each other, happily, wistfully.

We saw each other again a few days after and I knew that my life had changed, that there was a future of love, that the loneliness, the disappointment, was gone forever. Now, just a few short months later, I'm living the impossible, more than twenty years between us, wondrous at the mystery of attraction.

From the beginning, when I first saw her on the street, there was something about her smiles. They defined her, shaped her face. Sometimes, she smiled demurely, her lovely full lower lip a beautiful arch below her white teeth. It was like a grin, some mischief in it perhaps, but different somehow, warmer and more sincere. In these smiles, she lowered her face the tiniest amount, presenting her eyes, large, sparkling, making them the focus. At other times, she gave me her laughing smile. Instantaneous, I watched her eyes, her intelligence, sparkle quickly. Then they would close, she would throw her head back and laugh. In a good one, she'd come back down, cross one arm across her stomach to hold herself, her other hand covering her mouth, but again the eyes, peeking out above her hand, saying it all.

But my favourite smile, the one she gave me on the street, isn't her reaction to something. It's the one that comes from inside her, the one that doesn't seem to need a reason. It isn't gleeful or spontaneous. No, it starts in her basic gentleness, her inner peace, the foundation of her complexity. It's the one that takes its time, starts subtly, develops slowly. It is the smile of a uniquely beautiful young woman, but it shows her girlishness at the same time. In this smile her lips do not part. They are drawn together thoughtfully, or is it wickedly, wide across her face. It is in her eyes, not large and round like they are in her other smiles. No, in this smile, her eyes narrow imperceptibly, curiously, her left eye just slightly more than her right. They hide her mystery. I know that it comes from a thought she's having, perhaps a feeling, but what is it? The eyes say that something is there, but they won't reveal the thought. It is her allure, a smile that is hard to discern, an enigma. It is a smile that teases, that says, no, it isn't so easy. You're going to have to take a chance, figure it out, to try me. There is just the faintest hint of mocking in it. Is it mischief or is it desire, her confident sexuality?

This is the smile she has given me moments ago, wordlessly, standing before me, hands on my shoulders, at arms length. It is the smile that never wavered as she let her hands drop. The smile that taunted me as she undid the button of her jeans, lowered the zipper, wiggled their tightness over her slim hips. It never flinched as she crossed her arms in front of her, grasped the t-shirt at her waist. It held on, knowing its effect, as she peeled the shirt off, her breasts, the white bra, lifting so beautifully.

She smiles still, reclining on the bed, propped on her left elbow. She hasn't wavered, I know it, but I can't stop myself from gazing at her slim beauty, the femininity of her simple white bra and panties. She smiles as she offers me the gift of her slender body, long legs, the curve of her bottom, her hips, the softness of her breasts.

Josie is on the bed, ready for fun. With me.