7/15/10

In Retirement
By David Macpherson


Now that retirement has fallen upon us like early frost, sex in the afternoon is not the forbidden act it once was, but we have the fortitude to still make it so. We are industrious old farts and screwing is in our blood.

There are peaks yet to climb, flagpoles to mount, water slides to barrel down and ridiculously obvious sexual innuendos to toss at each other like firecrackers. I only hope the fuse is long enough and does not go off too soon.

We are sex’s old vaudevillians with grease paint and floppy shoes. There will be no hook for us today. The house is SRO.

No. We are not going to do it standing up, darling. We will do it right here on the divan. These bones purr in the comfort of cushions and fine upholstery. It is a necessity now. You have become bald and fat. I, well, I am more than I recall myself ever being.

Why matter? This art of sex was not made for the starving and the skeletal but for the lively and robust. We can assume the roles of asteroids colliding into stars or we can be less celestial and play other parts.

We can be courtesan and king, or teenagers attacking each other with the firm belief that we discovered sex. Or put on the guise of pizza delivery guy and harem slave, getting lost and mixed in each other’s secret fantasies.

Or we might fall into our own names. Look just like the pictures on our driver’s licenses. You can say the same stupid jokes that make me giggle and I can twine my finger round the surviving tuft of hair ringing your head and pull hard enough to bring out your smile.

Settle in. Relax. Settle some more. I will keep the rose in my teeth and you should keep your glasses and socks on. It is five PM. Do you know where your lover is? She is right here. Where else?


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David lives in Central Massachusetts with his wife Heather and son George.