Thank you Blackrandl1958 for your edit, it was both useful and necessary. I have made some small changes since the edit, so all faults are mine.
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Men are Like Red Wione.
I was watching myself in the mirror, just dried off after my shower. Not bad for an eigthy-four-year-old guy, I said to myself. Smooth skin, modest, but defined muscles in arms and legs and certainly no beer-belly but no six-pack, either, I had to admit. Too bad that the "appendage" between my legs, though still functioning, was so little in use nowadays. With a sigh, I started to dress.
Walking into the kitchen, I was greeted with a kiss and "good morning, dear," from my loving wife, Anna. As usual, I did the breakfast as my wife did all the other meals, a fair share of duties. Well, some would say not, but I do have other duties in the household.
My wife, one year my junior, is the glue in the family. She is the social organiser, the excellent cook, wonderful Mom and Grandmother; I love her dearly. Unfortunately, she is not a sexual person anymore; she hugs, kiss and snugs, but that's it.
Being a pensioner does not mean I'm idle, I have a lot to do, and sometimes I don't understand how I had time to work before. Must be the age, I presume. That day, I planned to go to my workshop and work on my ongoing project: the repair of an old table for a friend of ours. Too many of our male friends are gone, leaving many widows in need of some help. That's where I step in. I was in the building industry in my working days. Not as a craftsman, but as an engineer. During those years, I did pick up quite a lot that now is useful. I am quite good at fixing things, an ability my wife advertises to all her friends.
After reading the paper, I left for my workshop. Since it was a warm and sunny day, I decided to walk through the park, even if it was a short detour. In the centre of the park is a small lake or a large pond. When I passed it, I remembered sitting on the bench sixty-plus years ago, courting she who became my wife a couple years later. In a few months, we would celebrate our diamond anniversary. Going back on the memory lane I sat down on our bench, enjoying the weather, smiling at myself, thinking about those romantic summer months we had so long ago.
After a while, I took notice of a little group of young women in their twenties sitting on a blanket at the water's edge, having something like a picnic lunch. No wonder, with weather like this, those office girls found it a good idea to spend the lunch hour, rather than in a crowded café. I smiled and thought how nice it would be to be young again. One of the girls was sitting facing me. She had long blonde hair and she looked at me and smiled. I just wondered, did she smile at me, or about me? During the next ten or fifteen minutes, this blond girl looked directly at me several times, with an expression as if she was measuring me up. I just wondered: do I know this girl? But from where? I was unable to place her in relation to any of our friends, so I decided to leave and let it go.
Just as I made this decision, the group of girls broke up. The blonde girl kissed and hugged the other three, they walked left, and the blonde girl started walking to the right, same direction I would go to my workshop. After a short distance she stopped, looked back at me and obviously made a rash decision. She took out her telephone and made a call. When she finished her call, she turned and walked towards me.
"May I sit next to you, sir?" she asked.
"Of course, please sit."
"You may wonder why I turned around and approached you", she said, "but you remind me of someone I loved who is no longer with me."
"I'm sorry you lost someone dear to you."
"My grandfather, he died five years ago. You don't look like him, that's not it. It's the obvious maturity", after a little pause she continued, "and the calm quiet and serene look you have that make me think of him when I saw you smile at me."
"You smiled at me first, didn't you?"
"No, you sat there smiling the whole time, I thought you smiled at me, so I smile back."
"No, I was going down the memory lane. Sixty years ago, I sat here on this bench with my girlfriend, who became my wife. When you smiled, I hoped it was at me and not about me, because you are a pretty girl," I smiled at her again and continued; "and I wouldn't have liked to be considered an old dirty fool."
"No, I did not smile about you, on the contrary, I smiled to you, and I would like to talk a little more with you if that is possible." After what might have been an afterthought she continued: "I certainly don't look at you as an old dirty fool. I look at you as a charming, interesting mature man. My name is Suzanna, by the way. My friends call me Anna because there is a Susan in our group."
"I'm William, but my friends call me Bill. Sure, I'm in no hurry. What I had planned can be postponed until later today or tomorrow."
"Bill, I called my boss and told him something came up and begged the rest of the day off. He said okay. Will you join me at the corner-café next to the park so we can sit and talk?"
I nodded and we started walking to the café. After a short while, Anna linked her left arm to my right, and we continued our walk, almost as lovers.
At the café, we got a cup of cappuccino each and found a table at a window. I looked at Anna, and said, "Okay, now that we're here, what would you like to talk about?"
"I would like to know a little about you and your life, but since I took the initiative to this chat, it would probably be fair for me to tell you first a little about my life, if you're interested, that is."
"Yes, you've triggered my curiosity for sure."
"To put it into the right time frame, my mother was born a few years after you sat on that bench in the park, as she is in her fifties now. She married my father when she was in her late twenties, and they had me twenty-five years ago. We were not a well to do family. Not dirt poor, put moneys were tight. I learned that at an early age." She fiddled with her cup looking at it like she wanted to extract some courage from it, and continued: "When I started school, I soon learned that our family wasn't a happy family. I saw how the other girl's and boy's parents related to their children with love and affection, something that was missing in my life." I saw her eyes misting, after a pause; "My mom tried, but she was totally submissive to my father, who was a brutal bully. He told me and Mom he didn't want a girl, he wanted a boy. Consequently, he bullied Mom and ignored me for years. Then I started to develop into a budding woman, things started to change, and not in a positive direction, I'm sorry to say."
At this point, she stopped and dried away a few tears, looked at me and grabbed my two hands and said: "It's so hard, I try to forget, but it follows me like a bad dream."
"Stop if it makes you uncomfortable. If you need to tell it, I am willing to listen, but only if you strongly need to. Don't go through mental anguish if you don't need to."
"I need to. At the time I could talk to my grandfather, he was the rock I needed, but he's not here anymore. I can't talk to my friends; they wouldn't understand. But if you are willing to listen I will. You see, there are consequences to what happened that I want to tell you about later, which are important to why I approached you today."
"Okay, I won't judge whatever happened."
"No, I am not frightened about that; neither my mom nor I did anything bad or wrong. I was a late bloomer, but on turning eight-teen I started to grow a bust. Then one evening, early at night after I had gone to bed, my dad entered my bedroom and crept into bed with me... naked. He then started to feel me up and I started to scream. It was awful!" She dried her tears with her fingers and continued after a while, "Mom heard and came running into my room and started to hit my dad trying to pull him out of my bed. He got really angry and chased Mom out, followed her into the kitchen where she grabbed a cast iron frying pan on the stove, turned around and hit him hard on the head. He fell like a rock."
"What happened then?" I asked, hugging her.
"I followed them, and when I saw him on the floor, I told Mom I hoped he was dead. She was crying, folding her arms around me, said she hoped not. He was not moving, but breathing, so my mom called 911 and asked them to send ambulance and police."
"Oh, what a terrible experience for a girl; it must have been a shock for you."
"Yes, later when I look back, it was. At the time I was relieved he was on the floor and not in my bed. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital. He had a severe concussion and had to stay a couple of days. The police came, and one man interviewed my mom in the kitchen while a policewoman took me into the living room and interviewed me. I told her that my dad tried to rape me, and Mom saved me. The end-result was that my mom got a divorce very quickly, and my dad had a restraining order against him so he couldn't contact us. He was ordered to pay mom alimony for three years. We never saw him again; he ran away to avoid paying. Mom never received a cent." - It all came out in nonstop rush.
"Was everything better after he disappeared?" I asked.
"Our life improved; we moved into my grand-fathers house and lived with him. My mom became the loving mom I needed since she didn't have to submit to a violent bully. My grandfather became the male role model and was someone I could love unconditionally knowing he would never take advantage of me. He died sadly shortly after, and Mom inherited a house without mortgage. Because of that, she could finance my college by taking out a mortgage on the house. I went to a local college, and I am now a graphic designer with a good job at an advertising bureau. My present problem is relationship related. Boys and men suck! Your turn, Bill."
"I'm a man. Do I suck, too?"