Dating Over Forty

by Henry F. Tonn

In 1987, after 21 years of a successful marriage, my 42-year-old wife informed me that she had fallen in love with another man. He was 10 years my junior and she planned to move immediately with him to Chicago. My response, I believe, was perfectly logical under the circumstances. “We’ve had an almost perfect marriage, darling,” I reminded her. “People gauge great marriages by ours. You can’t possibly do better with this guy, only as well, and certainly a lot worse.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “Bye.”

So I was left to re-enter the dating world at the ripe old age of 46. Since the whole idea was quite intimidating to me, I just sat around for a few months moping and contemplating. Finally, I decided there was no reason to sit around moping and contemplating, I might as well dive into the fray.

The first thing I realized was that the rules had changed during my absence. I had never understood the rules very well to begin with but now they had really become muddled. It seemed like “normal” women weren’t interested in me while the “unusual” ones were.

During my first two years I dated such luminaries as Attila the Honey, Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde, Godzillina and Jackie the Ripper. Attila the Honey trashed everything around her with a scorched-earth policy whenever she became angry; Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde was a sweet Southern belle in public who spewed out venom like an eight-foot cobra in private; Godzillina once attempted to throw me into her bed and have her way with me against my will; and Jackie the Ripper, with her lovely, long, chestnut hair and baby-smooth skin, always carried a revolver in her purse which she would whip out quicker than Billy the Kid if threatened in some manner.

Finally, exhausted and confused, I turned to a knowledgeable friend of mine for advice. “Joe,” I lamented, “I must be doing something wrong.”

“No, Henry, you’re just having a tough time getting into the swing of things,” he assured me. “It’ll get better.”

“Do you promise?”

“No.”

More years passed, and things did not improve. The whole business finally reached a crescendo when I met a beautiful blonde who had only recently been divorced. Despite having three children, she was blessed with a terrific figure, plus intelligence, and a wide conversational repertory.

We had lunch on several occasions and then she asked me out for a Friday night. She explained that her college was having a faculty party at a country club and she wished me to escort her. I agreed, and proceeded to become engaged in the most bizarre evening of my life.

I picked her up at six o’clock, and to say that she was breathtaking would be an understatement. Despite being forty, she resembled a twenty-five-year-old movie starlet attending the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival. She was wearing a long pink cocktail dress and had her brilliant blonde hair pinned over her head in a very elaborate manner.

She entered my car and proceeded to chatter happily away during the entire one-hour drive to the country club. She talked about herself and her life in a breathy, seductive way I had not noticed before.

At one point she pulled her dress up slightly and idly examined her leg before informing me, “I have the body of a Playboy bunny, Henry. I know, because I’ve stood naked in front of the mirror with several of their magazines around me and I look as good or better than any of them.”

“Really?” I said with interest, wondering what I was now getting myself into.

We arrived at the faculty party and helped ourselves to an excellent seafood pasta with accoutrements concocted on the premises by the chef-in-residence. A live band was performing a wide variety of music ranging from golden oldies to country-and-western to big band to some rock-and-roll. They were quite good.

My date gunned down three Jack Daniels in a row and then informed me that she could not dance and had not done so in thirteen years. After this declaration she invited me to the dance floor.

To my surprise, she turned out to be a fairly good dancer: she followed well on the slow songs and gyrated happily around the floor to the fast ones. I noted that every single couple in the room was watching us, and all the men had expressions of deep, hungry envy. They probably thought I had brought the hottest female east of the Mississippi to this party.

The evening progressed and my date had several more Jack Daniels. She began dancing more closely to me. We were just the right height to be dancing partners and soon she was pressing the entire length of her body against me. She began whispering in my ear as we danced, her lips brushing against me intimately as she talked.

She informed me that she was wearing sexy red underwear and a garter belt. The bra, she assured me, allowed her nipples to protrude. “I have beautiful nipples, Henry,” she said, breathily. Then somehow she hooked her leg around my body and tilted her head back and began swaying to the music. The other faculty members in the room looked on with wonderment. I felt conspicuous, to say the least, while she seemed oblivious to the effect she was having.

At eleven o’clock she asked where the toilet was and I offered to accompany her. The men and women’s bathrooms were located right next to each other and she giggled as we approached them. “I’ll bet I can pee faster than you,” she challenged me.

“I doubt it.”

“Okay, we’ll see. The first one out wins.”

“Okay.”

I did my business and was back in the hallway fairly quickly. She was nowhere to be seen, so I wandered over to a soft chair I found in a corner and sat down to wait. A minute later she emerged and looked around. Then she spied me in the corner and let out a loud giggle and ran toward me in full stride and leaped upon the chair where I was sitting and straddled my body. She pressed her bosoms against my face and asked, “Miss me?”

“Desperately.”

She reached up over her head and pulled on a pin and her beautiful long blonde hair cascaded over my face. She kissed my temple and nuzzled my ear but would not allow me to kiss her. I felt as though I were in one of those strip joints I had frequented in my youth.

A half hour later we were whizzing along the highway on our way home and she was again on my lap. She had positioned herself so I could barely see the road around her while she continued to fondle me. She opened my shirt and rubbed my chest and told me what nice skin I have. She whispered, “I have a perfect body, Henry, and some day I might pleasure you with it.”

“Could you tell me when exactly?” I said. “I don’t want to be out of town.”

This went on for the first forty-five minutes of the trip. Finally she climbed off my lap and began putting herself back together. She pinned her hair up and straightened her dress. She put on fresh makeup and patted herself into place. When we arrived at her house she was a prim and proper lady again.

She reached over and shook my hand formally and said, “It’s been a lovely evening, Henry. Thank you so much for accompanying me.” Then she climbed out of my car and regally walked up the stairs. She gave me a little smile and a wave and disappeared inside.

At this moment I had an epiphany. I realized that growing old lonely and dying alone wasn’t so bad, given the alternative.

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