Charlotte wonders if the contented old-lady image she's comfortable with is less like Opie Taylor's Aunt Bea and more like her grandmother’s idol Mae West. Charlotte begins to explore the sexual pasts of women almost no one notices — lollies toting shopping bags huddled in the back of the bus, humped-back grannies fumbling for their checkbooks in the grocery line—faceless barricades among the harried crowds rushing past. Could these invisible souls once have been beauty queens, models, call girls who entertained celebrities in penthouse suites? Maybe even Mafia arm candy, closet lesbians or S&M mavens? And just what do they see when the lights go out at night? Are their rooms filled with visions of lost lovers, heart-thudding trysts and deviant pleasures no one would suspect they'd ever known looking at their dowager humps and varicose veins?
Revealing secrets from their youth, their stories pierce the veil of silence society attaches to women beyond their sexual prime. Charlotte's queries unlock spiced reminiscences not linked to senior citizens in our culture. In an environment where explicit, raunchy sex is slapped in our faces a hundred times a day through advertising, product display and entertainment, these women’s sexual identities are shadowed in anonymity.
Old Wives' Tales
OLD WIVES TALES
COLLEEN, 75, NYC, NY
One time in my senior year, I went to a drive-in movie with the neighbor boy Brent Kennedy. He was three years ahead of me in school. He came home on leave from the Marines looking really sharp, and we started feeling each other up in the car. I think they were showing a John Wayne movie. I hated that asshole phony. He was 4 F, you know, and here he always plays the macho hero. Some joke. Shows you that with the right PR, you can fool just about anybody.
Anyway, things were getting hot and heavy with Brent, and before I knew it, we were crossing the threshold. Just before he slid into home plate, I felt his come squirt on my pussy and drip down my legs. I panicked. Although his dick wasn’t really far enough up the Chunnel to do the deed properly, I knew I’d been really reckless. From a little cock tease at the front door to a full-blown invasion on all fronts could happen in seconds. My God! How I had been so stupid? Now I’d really done it. Fucked up royally. I was going to get myself pregnant, and the perfect girl image would be shattered. Jesus Christ! My mom might even take my car away.
For weeks afterward, I locked the bathroom door and prayed to Jesus, Mother Mary, Saint Peter and every fucking holy name I could think of to please start my period. I swore that if I was spared this one time, I would never screw again without protecting myself. My period finally started a week late, and I kept my promise. I had a whole box, twelve dozen rubbers in that T Bird. I got Brent to buy them at the Marine base. I think he took half or so when he went back to Camp Pendleton, and that was the end of that little adventure.
My first oral sex was the night we graduated from high school. My date was Dave Fulbright. We parked behind the restaurant where the class dinner was going on. He didn’t want to wear a rubber for some reason, and I wasn’t going to lower my drawers unless he did so he said we could do it another way. He put his head in my lap, slid his hands under my dress and got me wet with his fingers. Then he disappeared beneath all those layers of taffeta and net, and his tongue started tickling my clit. My god in heaven! That was so great. I absolutely loved it. I had a titanic orgasm with no puddle, no jism trickling down my leg and no fuss or worries about pregnancy. The sensation of his wet, warm, slippery puppy-dog tongue kissing and licking my pussy was an awakening I’ll never forget. How many sensations, out-of-this-world sensations do you get after you’re out of the baby stage? Very, very few. Maybe the first time you have a perfectly cooked Kobe beef filet with Beluga caviar butter or watch a sunset at the Grand Canyon or tour the Louvre. That’s the kind of immediate impact my first cunnilingus experience had on me. Like heroin. I was hooked. For life.