One Old Man and a Barmaid

Life can take some amazing turns. For the second time I was supposed to be dead by now.

That first time is a blurred memory, I really do think most of it evolved over time rather than being an account of what happened at the moment.

Badly wounded in an ugly war, surrounded by noise, flashes of lights and men yelling, I seem to remember lying there as a Doctor leaned over me. I have a clear vision of him reaching up and pushing a pair of glasses back up his nose.

I probably didn't look too good, blood and mud all over me, my left arm draped over my right side holding my intestines in as much as I could.

"This one's done." He had said, and turned away to try and help the others.

"I am not going to die." I managed to get out. He turned back to me and looked again. Then there was a blur of faces and after that I remember nothing.

I woke up in a room with lots of other men, bandaged up. Did that actually happen the way I just said it? I don't really know for sure but I think it did.

The second time was about 45 years later, the kind old Doctor patted my arm and told me that what I had planned was what he would do. Go have fun, enjoy the time that was left. That sounded a lot better than being sick as a dog and kicking off anyway.

"Six months, maybe a year." He told me.

That was almost two years ago. There is something about a healthy diet, exercise, and a reason to keep on going that does wonders. It keeps a person alive, curiousity about what the next day may bring is part of it.

The doctor had checked me out and asked me what I had been doing. "Exercise" I told him with a grin, then I told him about Kathy and all of the changes she had made in my life.

"Well, keep it up." He smiled at me, and he actually winked.

By accident, just chasing memories, I had met a young woman with two children. 40 years younger than me, now that is something an old man in my stage of life could not even dream of happening.

Meeting a woman had been the very last thing on my mind, too.

It was just an old bar, a club where I had spent many hours as a young man usually raising hell and having fun. I took my turns up on the stage with my band, screaming out the music of the day and pounding on an electric guitar.

Most of the patrons were far too drunk to realize how bad we were, though. The louder we got and the more off key we got, the better they liked it.

Every single shadow in the place held the ghosts of memories, of moments in time.

I had overheard her on her phone, heard the pain in her voice, the worry. On impulse, I had quietly slipped a couple of hundred dollar bills under my coffee cup and left.

That was a small thing to me, but a big thing for her. It was enough to bridge a gap, create hope.

A gift from a stranger, nothing asked and nothing offered, the kind of thing that does get noticed though.

When she saw me again days later, I was sitting alone, mindlessly tapping buttons on a machine designed to remove money from my pocket. She wanted to say thank you. Curious perhaps? That I could understand.

Perhaps in her mind she saw me at first as a sugar daddy, perhaps? Another thing I do not know. I do know we almost instantly became friends. There were dinners, long walks, an old grandfather figure and a young woman, just enjoying each other.

Just being with her brightened up the gray days of my fading life. Nothing asked and nothing offered, just more moments enjoyed, then left to the shadows of time.

When she decided, she simply took charge. She came to me wanting to be with me, it couldn't be for money or things because I had made it very clear that everything was going to my own son and grandgirls.

I had also long since given up any thought of sex. I could buy that if I wanted but I never was very comfortable doing that like so many others I knew. That was all just me and the way I was, sex was a personal thing to me and it was something that was best shared. It wasn't something that could be bought and sold. All that ever was, was a pretense.

I won't go so far as to say I never did use a lady of the evening, there were the girls available when we were on leave, plus in the years before I met my late wife Dotty I had dated and things happened.

The truth is that a boy must be a boy before he can become a man.

But there is something about waking up with a woman that cares about you that can't be topped.

Watching someone get dressed and stuff money in their purse and leave just made me feel alone and hollow inside.

When I met my future wife Dotty, it was a full dozen dates and some long sessions of necking and exploring before she decided. It was her that decided too, not me. Just like Kathy did.

That first time for us was pretty messy, I knew right off that she was a virgin, well right after it was way too late anyway.

I had never asked and she had never said. In fact, I am not real sure that at that time in my life I would have believed her. In that world and at that time there just was almost no such thing as a virgin, not after puberty anyway.

Dotty was 20 years old, I knew I had found something rare. I loved her beyond reason, and she was the same with me.

I will always remember that first time, the way she had pressed her bare upper body to my chest to hide her breasts from my gaze, shy about that but determined. The first probing touch of her fingers on my loins, the quickening of her breath as she found me. Her fingertips explored at first, there was that wonderful newness. I just held her and stroked her back, let her experiment.

She poked and rubbed my erection with just a couple of her fingertips, almost like she was unsure of exactly what that was or what she was supposed to do with it. Then she pressed it down, released it and it popped right back up, and she giggled. She did that a half dozen times, we both broke into hysterics that left us gasping for breath.

Then I kissed her, her eyes filled with the wonder and excitement of our naked bodies pressed together for the first time. Her lips pressed back against mine, we were like that for a very long time.

It was at that exact moment that I knew we were one. That instant burned into my memory and never left.

I leaned her back so I could lick and nuzzle her breasts, she clasped both hands behind my head and held me there as I suckled one of her nipples into my mouth. I moved from one to the other and then back, her body began to relax as she felt the waves of pleasure pour over her. When I finally reached down and slid the palm of my hand over her, she was wet and her legs parted, slightly, hesitant.

I repeated the motion several times and her legs opened wider until finally she was grunting with each motion and her hips came up to meet my touch.

Her body had tensed as I poised in position, then she winced with a stab of obvious pain as I entered. I had stopped, realizing too late that I was her first, worried that I had hurt her. Then she had mashed against me, trying to swallow me whole, wanting all of me.

I felt the almost overpowering wafts of pleasure and love. There is a difference between the blending of soulmates and sex for pleasure that cannot be explained, it has to be experienced.

Afterwards, she had blushed when she saw the bedding. She had slipped out of the bed in the dark and pulled on her robe, stepped into the bathroom. Then realizing, she had come back out.

"You need to get up, Danny." She told me in a tiny voice.

I also washed up, got fresh bedding out of the closet and changed them. Then we lay there on the crisp clean sheets, her face buried against my neck as she allowed me to fondle her.

We married just six weeks later, joined for life.

The doctors found the first tumor when our son was born by C-section, removed that. It was a terrible worry for months but then the doctors told us she was clear.

That was the end of our having children, though. Over the next 40 years there were regular checkups, until one day we did get the final bad news. Dotty went very quickly, almost peacefully.

I found myself alone, except for visits from my son and his wife and two girls, and time to time phone calls. For weeks I would wake up, turn to reach for Dotty and find nothing. I found myself often getting up from my chair to go see what she was doing, remembering halfway there that she was gone.

Four decades create habits in a person's life that don't just instantly go away. I almost constantly expected to look up and see her.

There was a period where I know I became depressed.

That was what made me decide to come home, to the roots I came from. I got as close as I could, too. I had made an offer for the same farm I grew up on, probably twice what it was worth.

I never even got an answer, so I bought the one across the valley where I could look out my window and see the old place.

Then I met Kathy, just an incident. I tried to help her, not a single thing on my mind but just that. Had anyone suggested to me where that would lead I would have just laughed.

That first night with Kathy was wonderful. It was almost like the first time with Dotty, but different. Then she was right there the next morning, her slim body jammed up as tightly as she could get to me.

Being older, I can't say my performance was amazing. There was no pounding, thrashing, rather we joined gently, sweetly. I didn't last for hours and hours, either, the first time was brief. But Kathy beat me there even at that, her body shuddering over and over.

Amazingly for me, there was a second time after an hour or so of rest, that actually lasted quite awhile.

Kathy wasn't what anyone would call stacked. She was on the skinny side, her small breasts were high and firm, seperated, shaped a bit like two halfs of an orange. The pubic hair at her groin was best described as unkempt.

It wasn't a madly in love thing, either. It was just two people who liked each other and were comfortable. The huge age difference? I would also like to say that it didn't matter, but it did.

There is one flaw that pops right up when a very old man like me ends up obviously hooked up with a woman almost a third his age.

Neighbors, people we meet, other family members of course are in the mix and must be dealt with. They all think that the rules that govern their lives should apply to everyone else. Then everyone assumes that the only possible reason would be the money, and I did have some.

I had done fairly well, and it seemed to come in a bit faster than I could figure out ways to waste it.

That daughter in law of mine was irate at the idea of me being with someone 15 years younger than even she was, but my son finally grew some balls and stood up to her. She got a confused look on her face, she didn't quite know how to react to him telling her to shut the fuck up.

Still, I saw the looks, there was no way to miss them. But I managed to keep the peace with my kids, it helped that they weren't around much.

I also saw the looks from others around town. Kathy and I would hold hands walking down the street, Billy's hand in mine on one side and Sara's hand in Kathy's. People would nod and smile, but then whisper to each other when they thought we weren't looking.

The first day that Kathy took me over to pick up her kids and meet her Mom Kate, was really difficult. She saw me and looked mildly confused. Then as realization hit her that I was the "Danny" that Kathy told her about, her expression became one of shock.

Probably because her Mom was about a year or two younger than my son, I guess. They went off into the kitchen, there was some animated conversation. I just grinned to myself, getting part of it.

After a few days her Mom saw just how happy Kathy was all the time, that seemed to do it and she accepted me. In fact, she was always rather pleasant to me.

Then Kate came out to my ranch, she was nicely impressed with that. I saw her eyes dart around, looking at all of my stuff. I never scrimped on furnishings, there was no need to. Plus she spotted the pretty red Corvette sitting in the garage. One thing I learned over the years, if people realize you have money their attitudes change.

A 66 year old man driving around in a nearly new $60,000 bright red Corvette makes for a pretty good display of having money, too. I knew I would get looks with that, and people would talk. I didn't care, besides, it made me feel younger.

Kate even managed to wiggle the conversation around to finding out how much property I had, I told her it was a shade over 300 acres.

"Oh, my, how do you manage to take care of all of that?" She asked me.

"It's pretty much all trees, I figure they know what to do." I answered with a grin. I would have bought just the house but to get it I had to buy the land, too.

So I bought the land.

Her Mom did frown when she came into the bar one afternoon, and saw me messing around with the video poker machines. She didn't like that one bit.

I had to agree with her, that was silly but I liked to play them and if I did nothing else at all the rest of my life I wasn't going to run out of money.

Part of that I had to thank my Daughter in Law for, she made it obvious that she figured she would one day get her hands on Dad's assets, so I had converted everything to cash, expect for a dab of stocks.

That was actually worth a laugh, I made the change just months before everything took a dump.

The one thing I did do, but told no one about was set up an account. By now I loved Kathy's two kids as much as I loved her, so I moved some cash to a college fund that they could collect at age 18.

I broke one of my rules right there that I had set for myself, I had told Kathy clearly right off the bat that everything went to my son. She simply did not care, and she made that obvious. So I didn't even tell her what I had done, I didn't want her to think I was trying to buy her affection or anything like that.

The truth is that I did it partly to help out those two kids that I loved, and partly to piss off my daughter in law. I remember thinking that I hoped there would be an afterlife so I could be there when she found out that there was close to a quarter million dollars she wasn't going to get a piece of.

That would probably be the best damned show in town.

I had already done similar for my two grandgirls. Tucking that much capital aside did put a bit of a crimp in my finances but I wasn't worried.

Besides, my doctor had told me I had six months to a year, what was I going to do with money? Maybe build stacks?

I knew Kathy's mom had made a comment or two about my playing the poker machines, but Kathy just grinned and shrugged. Finally her mom gave up with that, too.

Our life together was picnics, long walks on the beach with her two little pieces of mayhem, and we sometimes went down to the jetty where there was a huge flat rock that all four of us could sit on and fish.

Kathy's little 5 year old Billy got interested in catching fish real quick after he caught some kind of rockfish one day, it was nearly a foot and a half long and had teeth. I found out about the teeth quickly trying to get the fishhook out.

That was hilarious, I had to hold Billy by his life jacket while he held onto his tiny little fishing pole for dear life or he might have been pulled right into the river. There was no way in hell he was going to ever let go of that fishing pole.

After that he sat quietly waiting for another bite. Sara was younger, all she wanted to do was throw rocks in the water. Billy yelled at her for scaring the fish, of course. It didn't seem to though, Billy kept catching them, mostly little ones.

Kathy and I were happy. Our sex life was as good as can be expected under the circumstances, I could manage a pretty good session about once a week or so. I did wonder about that, Kathy was so young and I guess I just assumed she needed more than I could manage.

I even asked her about that rather pointedly one day, she just hugged me and smiled, telling me I was more man than she had ever known.

I had just had my face buried between her legs, sliding my tongue up and over her. That was fun, her lips were prominent anyway and just got fatter and fatter until she let out a high pitched squeal and her hips bucked up and down.

That was a pretty powerful orgasm for her, I watched her stomach muscles jump over and over, out of control. As she subsided, I reached up and traced my fingers lightly down her abdomen as she lay back covered with a sheen of sweat.

Then she grinned at me, leaned forward and returned the favor, doing things that for her were a first. She actually got about half of my six inches into her mouth, then not being sure what to do she had clamped down with her lips and sucked hard. That did it for me and I let fly. I expected her to jump up and run for the sink but she didn't, she just kept on sucking.

Kathy actually delighted in the taste. That was fine with me, I sure did delight in the taste of her.

I was a little bit surprised when she mentioned that she had never done that before, not even with her ex husband Bill.

Even though her comment about me being more man than she ever knew made me feel good, still I wondered if it was enough.

The real truth is we were happy being together and enjoying life, sex was just a bonus, a weekly event most of the time.

Oral sex was new to Kathy and she had discovered that she delighted in it, so after that she spent a lot of time playing with me. I didn't mind that one bit, either. Things became more frequent than weekly, and the times my old body just didn't have the energy to get up and going, we managed anyway.

My weight dropped and my little pot belly snugged right up, too. They say that exercise helps the love muscle, I have to say I think that is true.

Her ex husband Bill came around from time to time to visit with his kids. The two kids both loved him and piled into his arms the instant he showed up. Somehow that always made me feel good, Bill's touch was gentle and he was good to both of them.

I had figured there might be more trouble. After all, the very first time I had seen Bill, I had kicked him in the crotch and slapped his face so hard it had bloodied him. He had been tormenting Kathy, and came into the bar where she worked, in a total rage from hearing the stories around town about Kathy and I. Bill was a pretty big boy, but he was also drunk and in horrible shape, lucky for me.

That seemed to have some kind of a sobering effect on him. He never made any snide comments, in fact he always shook my hand when he showed up. Plus he had stopped the drinking, and the child support check went to the court regular as clockwork.

Kathy had forced him to pay, so he got his paycheck attached of course. I had expected there to be problems about too that but there wasn't, in fact, Bill had cleaned up and was always on his best behavior. I could see that he was basically a good man that had just gotten into drinking and of course that nearly always leads to trouble.

He even packed in overtime when he could at his job in the mill, that way he had extra money. He spent that on his kids, too, another surprise for me.

Kathy told me about what had happened between them, how she had come home from work and caught her husband in bed with her friend. They were both drunk and had simply fallen asleep afterwards. She also told me about the arguments over drinking, and how Bill had slapped her a few times until she just could not take any more.

Even after their divorce, he had made her life miserable. I had seen some of that the day he came storming into the bar where she worked, ready to fight someone, anyone. Kathy and I had only had a few meals together, some walks and talks up until then. Nothing other than that had gone on. Just an old man enjoying time with a young lady, a grandfather figure in her life I guess.