I looked down at the thick veins and age spots on my hands. Would he be disgusted if I were to wrap my lascivious swollen fingers around his cock. He’s in his early thirties, I’m a shade away from fifty. I am so attracted to him, I tremble when he’s near.

He’s blond, blue-eyed with a dimple in his chin. At lunch, our third in as many months, I admired the grace of his movements as he lifted a fork to his full and sensuous lips. My lips are pale and thin, not yet lined with age, but soon. I am not vain enough to cover my neck, but I should. It is becoming scrawny.

Over my lobster salad and his pickerel special, he regaled me with stories of Ancient Rome as if they were reality shows. I babbled in response to his gaze, which my ego decided to interpret as adulation. I stopped talking, awestruck by the way the light made his skin glow and brought out the sparkle in his ocean blue eyes. I wanted to caress his smooth face. I put my hands in my lap to stop myself from reaching over and stroking his lips. He said nothing but smiled. It was charming. I doubt he meant anything by it. Surely he wasn’t attracted to me.

He dresses stylishly. At our last lunch he wore a beige cardigan over a cream shirt, the top of a diagonal striped teal blue tie peeking out. I have noticed, when we meet for lunch on weekdays, that he wears ties to work. He also favours vintage cufflinks, silk charmeuse scarves and kid leather gloves. He’s a young dandy and I love it. We walked out of the restaurant after he held out my coat on for me. So young and yet so well-mannered. How can a woman resist.

When we parted, I touched his arm. I touched…his…arm. Every man knows that’s a woman’s signal for desire. Yes, I admit it. I wanted him. I visited the bathroom after lunch. Daydreaming, I imagined taking him by the hand and leading him into the ladies room, into a stall, undoing that cardigan, lifting up his shirt and kissing his chest, kneeling down, unzipping his fly and taking him in my mouth. Then as I washed my hands, I was brought back to reality. The increasing grey on my head made my hair look silvery in the mirror. I was turning into my mother. I used to dye my hair jet black but the touch ups would be too frequent now, the grey is coming in fast.

The young today reduce their written contact to 140-character lines or an emoticon. At the height of my enthusiasm, I managed to resist the urge to write this beautiful god a long confession, to let him know that I would worship his body. Of course if I kneeled at his feet, I would have trouble rising.

A gorgeous and intelligent fellow like him must have a line up of potential lovers by his bed. How could he not? Why in hell would I ever imagine that he would want me, could possibly want an old woman. Of course, the question remains, why would he want to see me at all, even for lunch? He knows I’m married, but he also knows I’m in an open marriage. I am not thin. I’m curvy. Perhaps I intrigued him with my witty repartee on line. Of course in reality, around him, I become an inarticulate fool, shy as a virgin.

When men other than my husband have told me I am beautiful, I have never believed them. They would on about my intense brown eyes, shiny shoulder-length hair, cuppable breasts and ass, long shapely legs, a generous demeanour, and claim I have a saucy sense of mischief. Besides that was before. I used to initiate sex with any man I found desirable. When I was thirty six, I had a twenty-one-year-old lover. An old soul who was good with his hands.

Now, at forty nine, I resist temptation. My legs have varicose veins, my cheeks redden too easily, hair stubbornly resists removal, I snore. In the past six months, my orgasms are different. When my husband is inside me, I gush. The smell is strong, not like urine but equally potent. My husband is turned on. I feel him harden inside me even more when I do this, but imagine how a young man might feel. Would he be aroused or disgusted or both?

And of course, there are the scars: bright and raised and purple on the outside of my right breast where the chest tube was inserted when my right lung collapsed; the eight-inch parallel lines snaking from just below my breasts to above my pubic bone where emergency surgery was conducted to remove my toxic mega colon & then another surgery for reattachment; the eye-shaped former stoma site, a hole to allow my small intestine to empty into an external ileostomy bag when my body was too fragile to void waste within. That’s gone now, at least. I’m sewn back up, like a vintage Raggedy Anne doll.

It’s been a difficult few years; I almost didn’t make it, but I’m through it now. I’m healing well. The scars are still there though, both outer and inner. Scars don’t just look weird when they’re so new, they also distort the body. Imagine tightening a belt too tight, the way it causes surrounding flesh to puff out. That’s what my body looks like. I’m just starting to get my waist back.

I remember when I was recuperating, still so weak I could barely walk. I was afraid of falling. But I kept trying, even though I was petrified. Yet now, I am afraid again. Afraid of being rejected by this lovely and enticing young man. Afraid that I really am an old woman. Afraid of how close I came to death, how close we all are to death at any moment.

And so, I have successfully managed to ruin even the slightest possibility that he and I will have sex. Why, gentle reader, you ask? Why, when I am so clearly attracted to him.

The young are absolute. They demand perfection. The way he holds himself, his collection of antiquarian books, his careful folding of the napkin and placement over his lap…all of this should tell me clearly that he wouldn’t be attracted to a broken old woman like me.

I learned recently that gargoyles were invented in order to keep water from leaking into buildings; these stone creatures represent distance. I don’t want to become a gargoyle, but perhaps I have, at least outside of the safe and passionate haven of my home where my husband not only nurtures me, but drives me to ecstasy. Why not just stay there and be happy? Damn this libido.

It keeps me yearning, fantasizing about going to bed with my young blond. He lives alone. Then I imagine the shocked look of revulsion on his face when I take off my clothes. I couldn’t handle that. I am too fragile. My skin is no longer thick, but vulnerable as a new baby’s.

Last time at lunch, I felt the pressure of his foot against mine under the table. My cunt clenched with desire. I froze. I thought of what would happen if I was above him and he tried to trace the scars and I flinched because they are still sensitive. So much of my body is sensitive. I am skittish. I find it hard to be touched since I was in Intensive Care. Even hugs bother me.

And I can’t really do casual anymore. Any man who isn’t freaked out by my body would have my undying loyalty. I even feel warm and tender when doctors and nurses examine me and don’t flinch.

So I ruined it. I made sure he would never want to see me naked. When I sent that first needy e-mail, I didn’t think I was doing it on purpose. Even though he said he was busy, I became demanding of his time.

His answer was silence. And then a later e-mail about how busy and stressful work is. He no longer answers my friendly responses to his Tweets. The young are absolute, didn’t I say?

I am aging fast, but I am still alive. I celebrate that. I’d like to celebrate with this beautiful young blond, to sate my ferocious hunger with a taste of his cock, give him the best head he’s ever had, lie on top of him and take him inside me, but that will never happen now. Better to remove him from temptation. The sad thing is now I’ll never know if he wanted me. I am an old woman, not because I am forty nine, but because I am afraid of moving forward, of allowing myself to try something new, of letting myself be vulnerable. So I write this to you, dear reader. Don’t turn to stone.

© 2012 Amanda Earl. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Bio: Amanda Earl is a Canadian libertine living in Ottawa, Ontario. Her smut has appeared in numerous anthologies including “the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica” (Carroll and Graf, 2006 and 2007), “Cream, The Best of The Erotica Readers and Writers Association” (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006), “Swing! Adventures in Swinging by Today’s Top Erotica Writers” (Logical-Lust, 2009), “Do Not Disturb, Hotel Sex Stories” (Cleis Press, 2009), “Surrender: Erotic Tales of Female Pleasure and Submission” (Cleis Press, 2011). For more information, please visit www.amandaearl.com or follow Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle.