Grow Old with Me

Putting my tools away, I go upstairs and meet Jim in the hall just as he comes from his shower. "Your turn," he says, "I want you smelling good." Tim tells me I smell good even when sweaty. 'Sweet sweat,' he calls it.

I feel cornered again—trapped is more like it—trapped in this immediate situation, trapped in this contemptible, legally binding union. Once undressed, I slip under the warm jets of the shower. Thoughts wander back to the Seagull where I stayed with Tim in Ocean City, where we showered together before dinner and then made love afterward. My tears flow, running into the cascading water like the tributary of a stream. If I stay in here a long time, maybe Jim will either fall asleep or lose interest. Not! He'd burst in here and drag me out before that happens. "Submit, get it over with," I whisper, before stepping out and toweling off.

As much as I'm starting to resent Jim, I can't help but feel sorry for him, standing there naked in our darkened bedroom, arms outstretched to embrace me. He's traded his scowl for a smile, warm and loving. For the moment, he's managed to push his hostility aside, doing his best, I gather, to win me back. "I'm your mate, your loyal mate of over twenty years," he says softly.

'Unfortunately,' I think, then admonish myself for being so mean spirited. This man has feelings that I ought to respect, irrespective of my own. Closing my eyes, I let my imagination take me back to another place and time. Perhaps it's not right, but fantasizing about Tim is the only way I'll get through this.

Jim isn't a terrible lover, but he's not in Tim's league. His flabby self I might be able to overlook if he didn't ejaculate so fast, if he wasn't so rough, if he displayed the facile eroticism, the subtlety of movement, the creative variations on familiar themes that Tim showed me. Subtlety isn't Jim's forte—in anything. He tongues my boobs and clit, more of a token formality the way he does it, before he rams his cock between my legs, then comes faster than you can say 'what the fuck am I doing here.'

Well, maybe not that fast, but close. And what the fuck AM I doing here? My 'loyal' husband is running his fingers through my hair, telling me how pretty I am, trying his best to be loving, while I'm thinking about another man. "Give me some more time, baby, and I might be able to go again," he avers.

Might. See, that's another thing. Normally, It takes Jim days to recover, while Tim made love to me the following morning and could have gone a couple more times in the afternoon. In fact, he would have had we had the luxury of time. Of course, Jim's stamina issues are no longer my concern. With him, right now, once is too much.

"Blowing me might help," Jim says. He points to his flaccid penis, half submerged under the rolls of his lower belly. "How bout it?"

"Not tonight," I tell him, gently, almost apologetically, and then make a horizontal move away across our king-sized bed.

He punches his pillow, the one propped up against the headboard. "Give me a chance, Addie. I bet you didn't say that to your boyfriend in Ocean City. He screwed your brains out, didn't he?"

"We're not in a competition here, Jim," I say, turning my back on him.

"The hell we're not." He sidles up against my butt and throws an arm around me. "Come on, give me a chance."

I exhale hard, then sit up against the headboard. "Maybe I should move out." My words surprise me as much as they appear to surprise him. Desperation is the mother of impulse.

He gets in my face and yells. "To live with HIM, right?!"

Again, I cover my ears. "Stop yelling at me!"

Grabbing my wrists, he pulls my hands away. "You're not going anywhere. You're not throwing away twenty-five fucking years of marriage."

He squeezes my wrists, hard. "You're hurting me, Jim, let go."

He squeezes harder. "You're not going anywhere, understand?!"

When I start kicking, he throws his full two-hundred and thirty pounds on my legs and slaps me across the left side of my face. "UNDERSTAND?!"

I cry and scream. Then he hits me again. Then again. And again. I block his hands as best I can while he continues to pummel my face and head. At least he has the decency to use his open hands; a fist would knock me cold. It's dark but we're close enough to where I can see his eyes, bulging, angry, menacing. He's become a different person, someone I never knew until this awful moment, someone even HE never knew. His sense of shame is evident, etched into his sad, pathetic face when he finally backs off.

Our heavy breathing is all I hear in an otherwise eerie silence as we stare at each other through the semi-darkness of our bedroom, a room I'm starting to hate with a passion. Finally, I break the silence. With a calm that belies what just took place, I say, "Are you going to let me up now?" He nods and climbs off me.

He pads downstairs and pours himself a drink while I pack a couple suitcases. The enraged wild man who only minutes ago tried to keep me prisoner in our bedroom, is now a passive observer, reclined on the sofa in his white bathrobe, bourbon in hand, watching me throw in some items from the kitchen.

"Do you know where you're going?"

"No." I stand by the door in my green, lightweight tracksuit, suitcases in hand, teary-eyed and regretful.

He sits up, then slides to the edge of the sofa. "Can we discuss this?"

"Jim, right now, I can barely look at you, much less speak to you."

He puts down his drink, then holds his face in his hands. He looks as if he's about to cry. "I'm so sorry, Addie."

"Right. Look, I'll be back in the next few days for my bike. Okay?"

He nods and then I walk out into the warm night, destination unknown.

*****

Tim

My cell goes off a little after eight on Friday morning as I'm driving to work. It's Addie, and it's obvious she's very upset. "I need to see you."

I pull into the parking lot of Dunkin' Donuts. The timing is good because I stop here every morning for my cup of java. "You don't sound so great."

"I don't feel so great. I'm calling you from my room in the Hilton on route 23, just south of Grayson Boulevard. I...I left him."

I sit in my car listening to her nightmare of a tale, gritting my teeth when she describes the way Jim assaulted her. "I'll kill the bastard," I growl.

"Don't do that," she cries, "just come over as soon as you can. Please, I need you." She tells me her room number before clicking off.

I call the store to alert my manager that I'll be late or might not be in today at all. Going in when you want is one advantage of owning your own business.

The Hilton is within a ten-mile radius, so it takes me just a few minutes to get there. I jump from the car, stride through the lobby past the desk clerk and take the stairs two at a time to room 314.

"Tim?"

"It's me."

She opens the door and pulls me in. I hold her as she cries against my chest. I pull off my tie and then sit with her on one of the twin-sized beds. She's wearing a blue nightgown, with nothing underneath as far as I can tell. She's always telling me how young I look. She should talk, what with skin still smooth and taut and muscle tone a millennial might envy, not to mention a level of fitness that took her to the Boston Marathon two years ago.

She wipes her eyes. "What do we do now, Tim? What are we going to do?"

Things aren't getting any better with Diane, I reveal. The atmosphere is cold and tense. We keep our distance. We have little to say to one another, nothing endearing at any rate. "Looks like we're in the same doghouse," I say. Then I add, "I love you, Addie. More than that, I adore you, something I never dreamed I'd say to another woman at my age."

She melts into my arms. We kiss and hold each other, and then she tells me something that convinces me that all the anticipated legal rigmarole will be worth it. "I don't want you because I left my husband. I want you because I love you and want to make a life with you." Then, in a faux threat, she raises her fist. "And damn it, you'd better feel the same."

I grab her fist and kiss it. "Well damn it, I do!"

We draw the shades against the bright sunrise and then climb naked under the sheets. At last, we're free of deadlines and curfews. We're free to linger, to shed any inhibitions we once had, free to make love the way we've wanted to for weeks. This is more than a morning delight; this is, I'm hoping, a precursor to a wonderful future together, living out the last few years of late middle-age and then transitioning gracefully into our senior years.

"I've got this feeling," she says, as we hold each other after our first (but not last) go-around of the day, "that those years will be truly golden for us."

"Me too," I say. "They have to be because we're not young anymore."

"You could have fooled me with that tireless cock of yours."

"I mean—"

"I know what you mean, Mr. Sixty going on forty. You mean we're old enough to realize that it's never too late to find happiness, but then when you find it, you better make the best of it because there's not a whole lot of time left. How'd I do?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

*****

Addison

We reserve our stay at the Hilton for at least until Monday. Now it's Saturday morning, and Tim has gone to look after his business. My phone rings again, just another one of Jim's incessant calls that I've let go into voice mail. This time, I answer. No surprise, he insists on knowing my whereabouts. At a hotel is all I reveal, in addition to telling him that I'll soon be by to get my bike.

I return just past noon, dressed again in my tracksuit. There's Jim, in shorts and t-shirt attending to the lawn. No surprise there, unlike what I see next to our walkway, a crudely made sign that reads POSSESSION IS NINE-TENTHS THE LAW. Jim stops work, then stands next to the sign, arms crossed against his chest.

I step onto the grass and then approach him within a few yards. "Have you lost your mind? What's this supposed to mean?"

"It means what it says. You left, and now everything in the house belongs to me, at least until you come to your senses."

"What will the neighbors think when they see that?"

"I don't give a flying fuck."

I shake my head, then hurry past him. I'm nearly at the porch when I hear him say, "If you're here for your bike, you'll need a key."

"What?!"

"It's chained to that pipe in the basement. And guess who has the key?"He stares at me wearing a shit-eating grin.

When I go to look, I see he's not kidding. He's holding my bike hostage with a heavy chain locked firm against the pipe with a heavy lock. Is this absurd, or what? My bike is now a hostage, a pawn in some sick, juvenile mind game. Angry as I am, I can't help but laugh.

By the time I go back out, Jim is on the porch, smiling in sadistic gratification. "Anything else you need, honey?"

Steadying myself, I try to reason with him. "Jim, please take that lock off. We both know that being vindictive isn't in your nature. So can I please have my bike?"

He plops down into the rocking chair. "Come back home and you can have anything you want."

"Our marriage isn't working. There's nothing—"

He explodes up from the rocker. "It was until you met Tim Farnsworth!" He glares at me.

"No, Jim. If things were okay, I wouldn't have felt the need to get involved with someone else. How can you be happy if I'm not happy?"

He huffs, balls his fists up and steps toward me.

I don't move. "Gonna slug me again? Do it and this time I'll swear out a warrant, charging you with assault."

He relaxes his hands and backs away. Then, leaning against the porch railing, he turns his back and gazes out over our green, quarter-acre lot. "How long do you plan to stay in that hotel?"

"Just a couple more days. Then I'm coming back here. Temporarily."

He turns to face me. "And how temporary is temporary?"

"Long enough..." I'm almost afraid to say it. "Long enough to find an apartment."

"By yourself?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, I think you do."

"Okay, Tim and I might get a place together." There's no might about it, but I can't bring myself to tell him.

Jim nods, looks down at the floor, shakes his head. "Twenty-five years of marriage, a beautiful house, grown kids and you're going to throw it all away to pedal off into the sunset with a guy you've known for less than two months. You're fucking crazy, you know that?"

"Fucking in love," I say under my breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Jim, can I have my bike now? I'm riding on Sunday. Please."

He glares at me for another few seconds. Then: "You'll find the key under the mat by the basement door."

*****

When I return home the following week, Jim appears reconciled to the situation. He doesn't protest when I move into what was once our son's bedroom. Things are tense, yet civil. Still, I stay guarded, ready to take out an ex parte if need be, if he gets abusive.

Tim tells me that Diane is already lawyered-up and making demands. Talk about vindictive. She just had all the locks changed while he was at work, shutting him out. Hours later, his own lawyer and hers draw up a separation agreement that allows Tim to stay in their house until he finds his own place.

The following Saturday, we ride together, and then check out two-bedroom apartments in the area. We find a nice garden-style complex with all the amenities, including a good-sized pool. We sign a year's lease and then move in a week later.

Jim is self-supporting, so alimony isn't an issue with me. However, it is for Tim because Diane doesn't work. Per their separation agreement, he's paying temporary alimony, and it's put a weighty financial burden on him. He tells me I'm worth it.

Time will tell. We're still going through divorce proceedings, a costly process. The only winners are the lawyers, they say, leaving bitter clients in their wake. Bitter? Jim and Diane might be but not us. We're too busy riding our bikes and loving each other. We hope to grow old together. "Grow old with me, the best is yet to be." What once sounded corny and trite now rings true.

Our love warms us as autumn deepens, brisk and chilly. Dressed in our long-sleeved riding duds, we ride two abreast on a rural road flanked by woods on both sides. It is late October, the height of autumn's glorious colorful beauty.

"Addie, I hope our golden years are as golden as those leaves," Tim says.

"They will be," I assure him. "The season will change. These trees will go bare and the air will grow cold. But our love will endure."

He nods. "Yes, I think so too."