Older, Sadder, Wiser

When my wife left me after nearly twenty years of marriage it was a bolt from the blue. I'd made my regular Christmas visit to see Fred and had some short-lived fun with Maynard, but otherwise I had been faithful to her and felt sure she was faithful to me. A bad moment came when she discovered that I had been masturbating. I found an occasional wank significantly drained me of tension when I had been wound up at work. She accused me of being unnatural and claimed that married men just didn't do it and that if they did, there was something wrong with them. I tried to counter this, believing that many, maybe most married men continue to masturbate from time to time, but she said "How do you know?" – which was unanswerable. I promised to stop but she shrugged her shoulders and said "Do it if you must, but I don't want to know anything about it."

She arranged to go to see her parents some seventy miles away and to stay the weekend. She seemed to do an endless amount of packing but not once were my suspicions raised. Then the night before she was due to leave she told me she was leaving me. I couldn't comprehend it. I pleaded with her to be allowed to do better, promised that I would never masturbate again, but she remained obdurate. I asked her about the children and she said that our son, who was 18, wished to remain with me, as he had a job and a girlfriend and was independent, even though he still lived at home. Our daughter, who was 14, was different. She didn't want us to split up; she didn't want to lose all her friends at school; she didn't want to leave home; but she couldn't see how I could cope with her on my own.

In the end, much torn, she decided to stay with me. I learned later that my wife was going to move in with a widower who was thirty years older than herself and who had been her lover before we were married. All communication between us now stopped, except for a few visits she made to see for herself that I was looking after our daughter properly and how we were both coping.

Coping as a single parent was initially a nightmare. I paid for someone to help with the housework and I rushed round the supermarkets on Friday evenings, trying to do a week's shopping in one go. I told my wife that she was always welcome to return home; and in turn she dropped her plans for a divorce. Gradually I settled down to the new routine, no longer blaming myself for everything but still aware that I should have behaved with more sensitivity and thoughtfulness for others. At first I was too stunned even to masturbate, feeling that this was at the root of my misfortune. I didn't want to develop a relationship with another woman (though this would have been easy) partly because my children would have lost hope of our getting together again; and partly because I knew that if I did, news of it would soon reach my wife. However, by the time autumn had given way to winter, and winter to spring I had recovered my equilibrium. I didn't wank a lot (I was too busy for that) but I was more relaxed when I did. I began to plan a project which would keep me busy at the weekends, namely the long-delayed extension of the kitchen that I had promised my wife many years before. This involved taking down an outside wall, rebuilding it further out and extending the roof to join it.

And so I paid many trips to a Builders Merchant in a town some eight miles away and so it was that my eye was caught by the guy who stood at the pay desk. He was in his early thirties, had brown wavy hair with a long nose and pale skin, but what mainly caught my attention was how slim-hipped he was and the breadth of the leather belt he wore to keep his corduroy trousers up. The belt, which required special loops in the trousers to make it fit, seemed to direct attention to his pelvis and groin. I looked – and marvelled! When he turned sideways-on in silhouette I could make out a well filled package in that area. For the first time in months I felt a stir of sexual excitement.

He was good at his job and seemed unaware of my admiration. He knew all the thousands of lines in the shop and their prices, he was quietly spoken and helpful to all the customers, and when I asked him (when I went up to pay for what I had bought) whether he enjoyed working there he answered me with easy courtesy. Just at that moment one of the other shop assistants came up to him and he broke off his conversation with me to say "Chris – if you could kindly take over with this gentleman for a few minutes I'll go and check whether Grandpa is all right. "

He nodded pleasantly at me and Chris took over. He was a short man, about the same age as the other guy, but nothing like as exciting to look at. He wore a white shop coat, seemed to have legs too short for his body and said not a word that was not strictly necessary. He tapped the codes for the articles I was buying into the computer, asked briefly if I had an account; when I said that I did, he tapped this in too, gave me a receipt and off I went. I was sorry to have had my conversation with the other guy interrupted in this fashion.

When I got home I thought how pleasant it had been to feel excited again and an idea that had been growing in my mind began to take shape. I might be able to meet my sexual needs by advertising for a male contact. I hadn't done this before but I had seen personal adverts in the local paper so I bought a copy and studied them. There was a section for males wanting to meet males, but this was before the days of voice boxes and you had to pay for a mail box to which written answers to your advert would be sent. These answers would then be sent to you.

I decided to have a go and drafted an advert mentioning amongst other things that I was self-employed, could only meet afternoons and could only rarely accommodate but was sincere and caring. I didn't expect a lot of answers so I was surprised when I received fifteen letters in my mail box. Some were brief (like "Meet me at … ) and others told stories of domestic tragedy similar to my own. Almost all of them were married, but the one which caught and held my attention, well written in neat handwriting, simply said "I think we would get on well. Please ring me any time after 8.00 pm. J."

I didn't hesitate for long. I used a public phone box, dialled the number he had given me and a voice came on line almost immediately. "If you're "J", I said "I'm the guy whose ad you replied to."

"I was so hoping you'd ring" came the voice. "My name's Jeff, by the way."

"And I'm Urlen" I responded.

"Funny name," he said.

"Every one says that. Any chance that we could fix a place to meet and have a chat?"

And so we agreed to meet at a pub where I hoped I would not be recognized and which was convenient for him. The meeting was for the coming weekend on the Saturday and by the time the evening came round I was feeling nervous. My son was out with his girlfriend and my daughter had a friend staying so she was happy to see me go out for a change. I drove to the pub, parked in the car park and went in. We had agreed on the phone that I should wear a light blue pullover and that he would be dressed in a grey shirt with brown trousers.

I saw him at once, sitting by himself at a corner table with a pint of beer in his hand. He saw me too and there was an instant start of recognition. "By God, it's you!" we said simultaneously. Jeff was the guy I had so much admired at the Builders Merchants and I realized then that in fact the shop was not so far away.

I sat down, then remembered to go and get a pint of beer for myself and was so flustered that I hardly knew what to say at first. He was much more relaxed, enjoying the joke of our being acquainted and soon we were into our second pints and talking as if we had known each other for years.

We used low voices to avoid anyone overhearing us and I told him about my wife leaving me, about the difficulties of being a single parent and about some of the my previous encounters which I've recorded in these chapters. He listened with sympathy and told me his own story. How his mother was a workaholic and had starved both him and his dad of affection. He was an only son, born and brought up in London, and he was here now, two hundred miles north of London, because he had volunteered to look after his grandfather when he'd had a slight stroke. He'd been a shop assistant in London and was related to the owners of the Builders Merchants, so he had taken a job there to be close to his granddad. He told me that he had had a long relationship with a married man in London which had come to an end when he had discovered that he was two-timing him with a much younger man. He said, with a laugh, that he wouldn't have minded if all three of them had been on the bed together but that it was the deception that had hurt. When he'd got the chance to move north, he had jumped at it.

"Do you consider yourself gay then?" I asked and he shrugged his shoulders and said "Yes – probably; but I'm not promiscuous and I don't go on the scene. It's ...." (he chose his words carefully) "a loving relationship I want."

I could have hugged him! A third pint would have sent me over the driving limit, so when we had finished our second pints I volunteered to drive him back home. He was silent for a moment and then said "Granddad is there at the moment. Weekdays after lunch he goes out to a Day Care Centre, he's taken there by a Social Services minibus. My afternoon off each week is Thursday. I work – as you know – Saturday mornings. You could drive me home now and I'll show you where I live. Then we could arrange to meet there next Thursday – say, two o'clock."

I could have hugged him again!

We left the pub and I drove him the short distance home. He didn't have a car and his house, an end- terraced two-up, two-down dwelling, was just round the corner from the Builders Merchants. There was a side alley between two rows of terraces and his kitchen door gave onto the alley. He looked at my red hair and said "When you come, come to this door, but wear a hat or something. I don't want all the neighbourhood saying to granddad "Who's that red-haired man come round visiting your grandson?" You could dress as if you were an Insurance man calling, or something. Bring a briefcase and look official."

And so I realized that he had given more careful thought to it than I had.

Thursday seemed a long time to wait but at last it arrived. I had bought a hat which I put on to cover my hair and I placed my brief case in the car beside me. Then I drove to the Builders Merchants, parked, and made my way to the alley.

He opened the door before I could knock and closed it as soon as I entered the kitchen. I had brought a bottle of wine in my briefcase which I placed on the table. He got two wine glasses from a cupboard and we sat down at the table, facing each other. I think I was feeling the more nervous because he seemed relaxed and at ease, smiling at me as he poured the wine and saying "Cheers!" when we started to drink. Looking at me with a smile he said "I haven't done this for some time, but I've been looking forward to it."

"Me too," I said fervently, thinking that the last time I had had sex with a man was with Fred two Christmases ago.

"In fact," he said without any embarrassment, "I was so excited thinking about it last night that I had a specially good wank."

"Me too," I said, again with fervour.

He laughed. "I can see we're going to get on well together" and any feeling of constraint between us vanished at that moment. "I'll show you the house when we've finished our wine. There's not much to show. Granddad sleeps downstairs in the sitting-room, so there's not much room in there, and upstairs there's a bathroom, what used to be his bedroom – and mine."

"You cook the evening meal, do you?" I asked.

"Yes – and all meals at weekends. Social Services don't operate "Meals on Wheels" at the weekends. Granddad doesn't eat much but he likes his meals on time."

I thought what a constrained life Jeff led, with work just round the corner, no car, and an elderly grandfather to look after; but I soon realized that he was one of life's carers and that he enjoyed what he was doing. Later he told me that he had thought of training as a nurse but his mother, a full-time staff nurse in a busy London hospital, had dissuaded him, so he had gone to Art College instead. He was not an ambitious person – and all the nicer for that.

We got round to talking about male sex and he said that as a teenager he had waited for the sex appeal of girls to hit him, but it had never happened. He had carried on wanking and was in his early twenties when he had been seduced by the man who became his long-term lover. From then on he just accepted that he was probably gay. He went on to tell me more about his lover than he had revealed in the pub. His wife and two young children lived 100 miles north of London, which is where he worked during the week, so he was only at home for the weekends. During the week he had a small flat in town and that is where he and Jeff used to meet. They had first met in the National Gallery, had started talking about a particular painting and discovered that both were interested in Art. The man had then discovered that he (Jeff) had never been abroad and had offered to take him to the continent for a couple of days to see some of the Art Galleries there. Jeff had found himself accepting, even though he felt suspicious of the man's motives. They had gone to Amsterdam and Jeff had been overwhelmed by the man's generosity, the good meals they had eaten and his general savoir faire. The hotel they had stayed at was grander than anything Jeff had previously experienced and their opulent bedroom had twin beds, side by side. On the first night, after a superb meal with aperitifs and a bottle of wine, they had retired to their room and each had got into their own bed, but after the light had been put out, Jeff had felt the man's fingers searching for his nipples under the sheet, then moving towards his groin. He had felt his dick stiffen with excitement and when the man asked if he could lie beside him he had put up no opposition. From there it had seemed natural to fondle each other's dicks and to wank them. He had cum off first, closely followed by the man, and the next morning they had done it again, only this time with the sheets pulled back so that they could see each other spurt.

He told me all this without embarrassment and after we had finished our second glass of wine he smiled and said "Time to go upstairs." He showed me the sitting-room on the way, with Granddad's bed alongside one wall and the settee awkwardly placed so that Granddad could see the TV from his bed. It was cramped in there, but Jeff's bedroom was neat and tidy with interesting pictures on the walls and a double bed carefully made up. The curtains were drawn across the window to avoid the possibility of anyone looking in from the houses across the little backyard but enough light filtered in for us to be able to see each other clearly.

He turned to face me and started to unbuckle the broad belt that had first attracted my attention. I had a sudden urge to undo this for myself so I went towards him, knelt on the floor in front of him and unbuckled it. Then I stood up and turned him round so that I was behind him and felt for the button that held his corduroy trousers up. When I had undone it I slipped my hand down the inside of his thigh and drew my fingers slowly up towards his groin. I was not disappointed! There was an enormous bulge there and my fingers traced the long outline of his dick under his loosened trousers while he drew his breath in sharply with pleasure. Then I returned to the top band of his trousers, found the zip and slid it down. His trousers were ready to drop but he had to help me manoeuvre them over the great bulge in his underpants. Finally they were a crumpled heap on the floor and my fingers could now explore for his dick with only the thin fabric of his underpants in the way. It felt heavy and ramrod stiff with excitement and my own dick was pressing fiercely against his flank through the material of my jeans. I was urgent now to drop his underpants and feel his flesh in my hand so I pulled them down and he stepped out of them.

It felt wonderful in my hand, even though I couldn't see it. It was hard and long and the foreskin drew back easily – and stayed back. I fondled the knob and to my delight found that it was damp with pre-cum. Jeff moaned with pleasure as I did this, so I returned to the shaft just below the head and found that the skin there moved easily up and down. I stroked it, every now and again returning to the knob which became more and more slippery with pre-cum. Jeff's moans mounted as the ecstasy grabbed him and soon he was breathing shallowly and I realized he was about to cum. I put my free arm round his chest, held him tightly and wanked him faster. I felt a shudder pass through his whole body and he staggered, taking a pace forwards. "Uh …. Uh …." he panted and I felt his spasms as he pumped his juice onto the carpet in front of him.

The whole of his dick and my fingers were now slippery with his spunk and I felt its stiffness subside as the orgasm came to an end. He turned round then, put his arms around me and gave me a hug.

"That was fabulous, Urlen" he said. "I've never done it like that before."

"Nor have I," I replied. "It just sort-of happened."

I could see little pools of spunk lying on the carpet and when I detached myself from his embrace for the first time I saw his dick. It was hanging limply, still enlarged, with the foreskin covering the glans and all of it a splendid size, with balls to match.

"I'll just clear up," he said, "Then we can get into bed;" and he got a tissue and wiped the carpet where he had cum all over it. Then he removed the rest of his clothes and got into bed, lying there watching me while I removed mine. When I turned to face him my dick was sticking out stiffly at 90 degrees and he whistled softly and said "Wow, it's even longer than mine!" Then I joined him in the bed and we hugged each other under the smooth comfort of the sheets.

For a few minutes we just lay there in each other's arms. Then, when he felt ready, Jeff felt for my dick, which had been pressing keenly against him. "You're wonderful" he said as he wrapped his hand round it. And indeed it felt wonderful to have his hand caressing it, moving the loose foreskin up, down and over the knob and sliding delicate fingers in the pre-cum which was oozing out of it. There was not an ounce of roughness in his handling and he soon had me on edge. "I'm ready to cum" I gasped as I felt my balls tighten and my whole cock ready to explode. "Here it cums….." and I shot my load into the space between his hand on my dick and the sheet above us. The sheet was all sticky with it when, later, we turned it back to look at each other. Just for now, though, we lay exhausted but happy, gradually dropping off to sleep in the warm and partly darkened room.

I'm not sure how long we slept but when I stirred Jeff looked at the clock and got a shock. It was only half an hour to the time Social Services brought his grandfather back home. He leapt out of bed, turned the sheet back for me to clamber out and we both stared at the damp stain on the top sheet. Jeff giggled and said he could see that I had had a good time. Then we got dressed and I left the house (with my hat and briefcase) after a quick hug in the kitchen and a hurried promise to meet again in the same way next Thursday.

There followed many meetings. I remember that on our second meeting at his home we sat on the settee in the living room, our thighs touching and exquisite ripples of excitement invading my groin. They did his too because there were immediate bulges on display. I ran my hand over his and soon felt his marvellous dick lying along his trouser leg. I stroked it gently, then put my hand up to his wide belt and started to undo the fastening. He kissed me while my hands explored for the top button and the zip. As I pulled it down he inserted his hand in his underpants and drew his dick upwards. It took only a moment for me to replace his hand with mine – and there it was, warm, willing, long and slippery between my fingers. He sighed with pleasure and bent down to undo my trousers and extract my rampant dick – and so we sat, with each other's dicks in our hands, gently stroking. They were almost equal in length, thickness and hardness. We were well matched and soon we were both upping the pace and shooting our loads sitting on the settee. There was quite a lot of mopping-up to be done on that occasion!