Lost in the Supermarket

"Not to me," Paula said.

"I don't understand. How is this not for the best?"

"I don't know ... I just know."

"You know what?"

Paula looked deep into my eyes. She said, "I just know I don't want you to leave me."

Then she kissed me.

*****

Paula's story

We kissed for a long time, holding each other in the sunlight that slanted in through musty tree branches, while Mary played just a few yards away from us.

When the kiss was over, I leaned into Mark and let him hold me.

"I'm too old for you," he muttered. "You need a man your age, not someone who could be your father and Mary's grandfather."

I shook my head. "Nope," I said. "I need a man who cares for me and Mary, who doesn't make demands but just keeps right on giving. That's what I need." I looked up into his eyes. "I realized that last night. Matt wanted too much from me—stuff I wasn't able to give him. All you want from me is ... me."

"Paula," he said, "there's something you need to know ... about me."

I waited.

He took a deep breath. "I'm an old man. Not everything works the way it used to."

"I don't under—"

He gestured slightly down around his crotch. It took me a long moment to get what he was trying to say.

"Oh."

"Right. So ... you're still a young woman. You deserve to have your needs met ... and I just ... cannot."

I thought about it for a while. I really enjoyed sex with Matt. It was the most fulfilling sex of my life (not that there was much to compare it to). But if I never had sex again ... how would that make me feel? Could I handle any frustration? Would masturbation be enough for me, for the rest of my life? Would I be tempted to cheat on Mark? What would that do to my relationship with him?

Those thoughts and a hundred others swirled around in my mind as Mary laughed and shrieked with joy just a few yards away.

"Is that why your wife divorced you?" I finally asked.

He shook his head. "Nope. Our sex life was fine ... mostly. Until she learned I was cheating on her with my secretary."

"What?"

He nodded. "Yes. I cheated. I committed adultery. We had been married for more than a decade when I slept with my secretary. We had an affair; it lasted for more than a year. When my wife found out, things just kind of ... froze ... between us. Two years later, I was in court, finalizing the divorce settlement." He smiled thinly. "She took everything the law allowed, plus a bit more. I didn't really fight it, because I understood where she was coming from."

"Oh, Mark—"

"I know, right? Maybe my ED is God's way of punishing me for committing adultery. I don't know. But now you know ... everything. Still want to kiss me?"

I thought for a long time before I looked him in his beautiful blue eyes. "Are you going to cheat again on somebody else? Somebody like ... me?"

"I can't anymore."

"Not my question. If you could—would you?"

He shook his head. "No. Never again. That was my big mistake. My 'sin', if you want to call it that. I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway. I would never, ever, make that same decision again. I swear."

I thought about it for maybe two minutes before I pulled his head down and kissed him again.

*****

Mark's story

Things didn't change right away after our kisses. Maybe it was because I'm an old man, or maybe it was because Paula had been burned before and wanted to make sure things were right before making any big decisions. I kind of left it up to her to tell me how things were going to go.

Things stayed basically the same for a couple of weeks.

Well, not everything. You could have knocked Paula over with a feather when I handed her the keys to a nearly new Toyota Prius. She kept telling me that I couldn't, that I shouldn't. I didn't listen to her.

I guess I can be stubborn, too.

"It was a repo," I told her. "Almost new. Only 4,000 miles on it. My guy says it's in great shape."

"How much is this costing you?"

"Nothing. Well, nothing after I pay off the loan next month."

"Mark, you can't. I can't let you—"

"Please let me, Paula. You can't believe how happy it makes me to take care of you, at least in these little things."

She sighed deeply. "All right," she finally said. Then she kissed me again.

I would run over burning coals for one of Paula's kisses.

I took the position at Freeman's. My old job at my old pay rate, plus twenty percent. Turns out that, while some labor might be cheap, when you factor in the legal costs, that labor turns out to be really, really, expensive. The owners learned that lesson a bit too late, but they had learned it.

When I walked in the door, there was clapping and even some cheering. It felt good. I would have felt better if Paula walked in next to me, but she was at Carson's, as the new Assistant Manager. With a fifteen percent pay raise of her own.

There was no more talk of the two of them moving out. This was their condo for as long as they wanted it to be. Soon, it was obvious that it was our condo. Mary had her own room.

Paula moved into my room.

*****

Paula's story

You might think that sleeping with Mark, in Mark's bed, was a big deal. But it wasn't—not really. It didn't feel like a big deal: it felt natural, organic. It felt as if I was supposed to go to sleep next to him and wake up next to him. I felt as if I had always been by his side, and he by my side.

Mary didn't even raise an eyebrow when I explained the new setup to her. She smiled widely and then talked about how she wanted to paint her room a special color of blue, since it was her room now.

With Mark's raise and my raise, and nothing to pay each month the condo except for a $78 HOA fee, our savings grew quickly. I was no longer stressed about how I was going to pay for Mary's college when the time came.

Mark and I hugged and we sometimes kissed, but that was all. I wore a nightie to bed and he wore briefs. I know he looked at me when I came to bed. I mean, he looked at me hard—like a man looked at a woman. I didn't mind in the slightest. I let him look. If he wanted to touch me, I would have let him touch, but he never did.

One night I came to bed slowly, letting the bathroom light silhouette my body. I felt his eyes on me, raking my body. I smiled. I hoped he saw my nipples were erect.

When I settled down next to him, he kissed me and whispered, "You forgot to turn the light off."

"No, I didn't." Then I touched him. My hand gently traced his penis, and found it erect and straining underneath his briefs.

His lips found mine as I gently stroked him.

"Off. Take them," I softly ordered.

While he slipped off his briefs, I took off my nightie and pulled his lips to my breasts. My hand found his erection and stroked it firmly while he suckled me, pausing only to groan. Soon I was going faster and faster.

"Paula ... I—"

Then it happened. I felt his sticky heat shoot up, covering my rapidly moving hand. I kept my hand going for a few moments, slowing, until I felt he was done.

"I thought you said that didn't work anymore!" I admonished him as he lay against me, still panting from his orgasm.

"Well, not the way it used to."

I scoffed. "What other B.S. have you been telling yourself?"

"Huh?"

I took his hand and put it between my legs. He could feel my wet warmth. He began to move his fingers—at first gently, tentatively, but then faster and more firmly until he put two fingers inside of me and it didn't take very long at all until my orgasm filled my body and I bit his shoulder as I came against his hand.

We kissed again, our tongues intertwining.

Finally, I pulled back.

"Mark, look at me," I told him.

"Next week you are going to make a doctor's appointment."

He nodded.

"You are going to get your ED issue checked out—thoroughly. If it's not fixable, then this—what we just shared—is fine. It's more than fine! We will use our fingers and mouths on each other. Probably not every night. Maybe once a week; maybe once every two weeks. That will be enough for me. You?"

He nodded again. "What if my issue can be ... fixed?" he asked.

"Then you are going to do what the doctor tells you. Then you and I are going to have sex as often as you can. Again, once every two weeks is more than fine. Once a month will work. I will gratefully accept whatever we can have together. Got it, Mister Mark?"

"All right, Mistress Paula."

I smiled. "But that's not all. If you can get the ED fixed, then there's one more thing you need to do."

"What's that?"

"Get a vasectomy. If you're going to be having sex with me, I want to feel you without anything between us." I kissed him and whispered, "I want to feel you cum inside of me but I don't want to get pregnant."

His eyes got big. "Got it."

"Good."

*****

Mark's story

Things worked out better than I deserved. Turns out, there was a pill that could help me. A pill plus a vasectomy was all I needed to enjoy sex with Paula.

Our first time together was everything I hoped it would be. I asked Paula if she minded all my gray hair—nearly white in some places. She laughed and asked me if I minded that she didn't shave her pubic hair down to nothing the way so many young women did these days.

I laughed then used my tongue and fingers to show her how little that mattered to me. Two powerful orgasms later, she pulled me deep into her and we made the bed creak for nearly twenty minutes before I filled her with my heat. We laughed and kissed and touched each other as if we had never touched each other before.

Our first time together was magical. So was our second time. So was every other time afterwards. We just ... fit together. It wasn't just physical—though that part was perfect. It was all the little things. We took care of each other in a thousand different ways.

We grew closer as Mary finished third grade. On the night that summer started, I knelt before the two of them and asked Paula to be my wife, to let me love her forever. To my everlasting joy, Paula said "yes."

Then Mary hugged me, too. She whispered. "I love you, Mister Mark."

I hugged her back. Looking into the eyes of my soon-to-be wife, I asked her daughter, "Would you like to call me 'Daddy'?"

To my everlasting joy, Mary said "yes."

We got married. I adopted Mary. I did my best to raise her, even though I had no clue as to what I was doing. I mostly looked at Paula, and did what she did.

It was enough.

I want to end my story by stating the obvious: I am still a dirty old man. The difference now is that I don't ogle the young women I work with, or whom I see at the gym. I don't look; I don't stare.

I don't care about them.

I have eyes only for Paula.

*****

Epilogue: Mary's story

Mark—Dad—was married to my mom for 22 years before he died. He lived long enough to see me graduate college, graduate medical school, and begin my residency. He lived long enough to walk me down the aisle and give me to my husband, Jim. My mom was 52 when he finally let go and moved on to wherever people go when they die. (Assuming they go somewhere. I wouldn't know. I'm not any kind of religious.)

Mom was devastated when Dad died, of course. Dad was the love of her life. She moped around, not knowing what to do without him. He had retired a decade before, but she stayed on at Carson's—now the Senior Manager of the store. In fact, when Freeman's and Carson's merged, the owners made mom the Regional Manager. She got to boss around the other Managers.

Not that any of that mattered to her without Dad in her life.

Mom would come home after a hard day at work, and Dad would have a bath waiting for her. Sometimes they would sit on the couch together and he would rub her feet—just smiling at her all the while, his warm blue eyes filled with love. That's how I picture them in my mind: sitting on the couch while Mom sipped a glass of wine and Dad rubbed her feet, both smiling at the other. Their life was filled with love.

I don't know if she knew how much Dad had in savings, but I was shocked to learn that he had left her several million dollars. I knew they had saved a lot of money; I graduated from medical school with zero debt. Turns out Dad's "retirement savings" was a very large portfolio of stocks and bonds. I guess his old construction business was more successful than either Mom or I realized.

Mom didn't care about the money. Money wasn't an issue for her—at least, not since she met Dad. They always had enough, mostly because they didn't live a fancy life. We lived in Dad's condo; it was enough for them. Mom drove her Prius for a decade before they decided to get another car. By then, they only needed one car. Dad rode his bike everywhere.

The driver didn't see him on his bike, or so she said. Mom and I were devastated when we got the news. He was in his mid-80's, but we both felt that he was still in the prime of his life. At least it was quick. He didn't suffer a long, drawn-out illness.

When Mom and I cleaned out his things, we found his old medals from the time he was in the Marine Corps. We had to look up what a Silver Star was. The citation that came with it was impressive, to say the least. Mom and I both cried when we read about Dad's bravery. She put the medal and citation up on the wall in bedroom, where it stayed for the rest of her life.

It took me a year of nagging and negotiating, but I finally got Mom to look up her old boyfriend, Matt. Turns out that Matt had been married and divorced—twice. He had two kids: a boy who was just starting college and a girl who was in the process of applying to grad school. I pushed and pushed, and the two of them finally got together for coffee.

She came back from their "it's-coffee-not-a-date" smiling and I knew something was still there. She asked me if it was okay and I told her that Dad would have approved. He would have wanted her to move on, to keep living after he wasn't there for her anymore.

Mom and Matt took it slow but within the year they were sleeping together. It wasn't a big deal, as far as I could tell. Maybe once or twice a month. They never moved in together or got married—Mom said that one marriage was enough for her, just like one daughter was enough for her. But they hung out a lot and went on vacations together. Matt made her laugh. They went on a nice two-week cruise down to Mexico—Mom's treat. She came back from the cruise tanned and smiling.

Jim and I finished our residencies and got situated with an HMO. It wasn't an ideal situation, but it was a good place to start out. We promised each other that, one day, we'd open our own practice in a place that needed doctors.

Just not in the place that I'd been born.

I miss my dad nearly every day. He was the best man I know. He was kind and gentle, and he put me and Mom ahead of himself. Jim and I promised each other that, when we become parents, we'll treat our children the way Mom and Dad treated me.

*******