Getting older has its positive aspects. First and foremost is that it is infinitely better than the alternative. We all know what that means.

Of course, I can’t say with any certainty that if I were to fail to wake up one morning, that I wouldn’t find myself in a better place. Maybe it depends on what you believe happens after we pass. For some, there may be nothing at all. And I suppose a better place depends on what we consider to be “better.” Better than what we have in the here and now?

If your life really sucks in this life, probably anything is better.

Let me table that for another day and another conversation, because as it stands today, life doesn’t suck, and it happens to be pretty damn good from my perspective.

Oh yeah. Back to why getting older has its positive aspects. In addition to being better than not getting older, it seems the little things don’t matter as much. It’s not the popularity contest of youth, the competition to look better than the person standing next to you. I accept that at 62, I’m not competing against some 25-year-old Adonis who’s trying to get into the panties of some 22-year-old Aphrodite or Venus. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing inherently bad about being young and competing. It’s just that so much time and energy is spent on things you can’t always control, at least not without a lot of free time and money.

Take the size of your cock, for instance. Mr. Adonis, I hate to break the news, but whatever you’ve been blessed with, that’s pretty much what you’ve got to work with. Or your breasts, if you are an Aphrodite. There’s always cosmetic surgery, but everything comes with a price tag, sometimes money and sometimes a botched job. Weight, height, shape…maybe diet and hours at the gym with a personal trainer can change some things, but for the most part, getting into a particular shape is a constant and often futile battle.

Like the joke goes about being in shape, round is a shape.

At my age, I don’t lose any sleep about my shape or size. I’ve never had anyone complain. If I were a few inches taller, or if my belly were a bit flatter, would it make that much of a difference? And if I added an inch or two in length or girth, would I find myself getting better Google ratings after being with a partner? Some more hair on the top of my head? Or a different color other than grey and white?

Honestly, if it doesn’t matter to my partner, why should I lose any sleep and obsess about things I can’t change?

Maybe the best part about getting older is that there are more women who interest me. Not in a creepy way, but in the sense that my perceptions have broadened. At 25, when I was still single, the range of women who attracted me would likely be between 20 and 35. Any younger, and it would start to feel predatory. Any older, and I’d start to question their interest in me, being so much younger. The “pool” was a group within a 15-year range.

But as I got older, the world of women seemed to grow older with me. All of a sudden, women in their 60s, and 70s, and even into their 80s, became my contemporaries. And just like I afforded myself some grace over my signs of ageing, so too these older women cut themselves much more slack. They didn’t obsess over the dimples and bumps and sags the way their younger counterparts might. They had the benefit of experience, and learned the worst kept secret in the eternal game of attraction:

Men don’t really notice all the so-called flaws. We are actually a bit less superficial than popular culture makes us out to be. What’s inside – what makes a woman “tick” – that makes up a lot more of what we notice, and what attracts us.

That means all you MILFs, and GILFs, and cougars, that you really do possess something that is undeniably beautiful and sexy, and it has nothing to do with what you see in your mirror.

Where am I going with all of this (in the event it isn’t obvious)?

She’s around my height, maybe an inch taller or so with heels. Hair as white as snow. Skin? Beautiful, but since that’s not a visual descriptor, yes, there are some of the expected wrinkles. She is 81, after all. Fully dressed, I can’t tell you whether she’s got a flat stomach or a bit of a paunch, but does it matter? Arms? Same mystery under the clothes she wears, but I’ll hazard a guess that there’s a little bit of flesh that hangs down rather than having perky biceps. Legs? Now there’s something I do know about. With a skirt, all I see are shapely and very sexy gams.

I confess that I haven’t seen the scars yet. Two knee replacements. Or was it hips? I honestly can’t remember. And it’s not really my business. We’re friends, but some things come up in conversation, and some don’t. A quick check of my text message, and…it was knees. She did mention it to me after all. Did I mention that my memory is not a steel trap? That’s not age, it’s just who I am.

We keep running into each other in a community setting where we both belong. Lots of people around, so conversations are usually quite appropriate. But I’ve helped her out in my professional life, and have been over to her house once or twice. And we’ve had some good conversations. Enough that we’ve planned to get together for dinner. Maybe go out? Maybe at her place?

The meal is the easy part. But the rest, that’s where it doesn’t matter if you’re the 25-year-old Adonis, or the 62-year-old who is old enough to be a grandfather. The question is about the signals.  And the question is, what does she want? What are her expectations?

I plead complete ignorance on that front. And here’s why.

At 62, my sex life is more interesting, varied and open than it was when I was that 25-year-old. It has been getting better every year as I get older. I thought for certain that my libido would diminish as I got older, but the opposite has been happening. I was never an Adonis. Average, even a bit below average height. Not athletic at all – the only time I heard the term “ripped” likely was in the context of tearing off the coupon stub on a store flyer. And I was a faithful and devoted partner for most of my prime years.

Then I got older. The grey started to come in. One pill a day became two, and then three, and now I am living proof that medication does keep some of us alive, very literally.

And I am still horny as all hell. No trouble getting it up, and keeping it up. That isn’t bragging, but rather a statement of great relief and thankfulness. Hard as a proverbial rock. That is coupled with the experience of my older years, learning how to please my partner, and knowing it’s not all about fucking.

There. I’ve used that term. It’s not all about fucking. My personal favorite is to please my partner orally. And touch is very important. Sexual, or just in a tender way. I’m not going to get all mushy and romantic. It just is what it is. As you get older, if you pay attention to what your partner says, either verbally or non-verbally, you will learn what you need to do.

My current partner? She happens to be a decade and a half younger. Three years of sex that we both describe as being off the charts. There is nobody more beautiful to me, and that is both how I see her, and how I feel about her. We don’t live near one another, so time together is not often, but it is always meaningful. Yeah, I’m going there now. Mushy and romantic. Absolutely in love, jumping in with both feet. Hoping this lasts forever.

So why talk about another woman? Why this internal monologue about an 81-year-old friend?

Because I don’t have a clue as to how to read the signals. And if I am going to be open with my partner, then I need to know what to say.

Using myself as the baseline data, I can say that libido doesn’t necessarily diminish with age. It can grow. So does my 81-year-old friend desire intimacy, and if so, what does that look like? Will we share a dinner, spend some time on her sofa talking afterward, and then share a kiss? We’ve already hugged many times, but I’ve also hugged my sister too, and my mother, and countless friends. I’d hug Mother Teresa if I met her, but that doesn’t mean we’d swap spit.

I can’t read the signals.

Let’s say we do kiss. Let’s say she is interested in more than a hug. What comes next?

I know what came next with my partner. Almost the stereotypical porn video sequence. Kissing. Then breasts. Then a blowjob. Then fingering and then going down on her. Then fucking. Formulaic, and somewhat predictable.

But with my 81-year-old friend? Yes, it’s an ageist set of inherent biases on my part, coming from ignorance. Does an 81-year-old woman want her breasts played with? Her nipples sucked and maybe a bit of biting? Does she want her pussy touched, maybe first from over her clothes, and then maybe being fingered? Does she want me to play with her clit?

Does she want to feel my cock? If we are together on her sofa, and kiss, I guarantee that I’ll be hard. So will she feel me over my pants? Will she unzip me and want to hold it? Will she want to kiss the head, lick it, and then take me into her mouth or down her throat? If she makes me cum, will she want to swallow it, or will she ask me to pull out and not cum in her mouth?

Will she be comfortable with me wanting to go down on her? Does she get off from oral? In her many years of marriage (and she is now a widow), what did she do with her husband? Was he a cunnilingus type of guy? Was she a cock-sucker? And when they fucked, was it missionary? Did she ever ride him, like cowgirl or reverse cowgirl? Did she ever get fucked doggy style? And anal? Was that even on the menu?

I don’t know why I have all these questions. She grew up as a young and sexual woman, when she was a 20-year-old Aphrodite, in the mid-1960s. Sexual freedom was the prevailing mood. And she was a woman in her sexual prime in the 1970s, at the same time that porn became more mainstream. Why wouldn’t she give head? Why wouldn’t her husband go down on her pussy? And why wouldn’t she call it a pussy, and why wouldn’t she call her husband’s penis a cock? Why wouldn’t she get down on all fours and be fucked from behind?

Men and women have been doing this since the beginning of time. There are pictures from Ancient Egypt depicting sex in all its various forms, as well as in Ancient Rome and Greece. And India. And China. Sex is universal, and it is timeless.

So, why wouldn’t a healthy and beautiful woman, at age 20, and then 30, and then into her 40s and 50s, do all the things that other women do? Why wouldn’t she want to suck a cock, and why wouldn’t she want someone to suck on her pussy lips and tongue her? And why wouldn’t she want to be fucked?

And more importantly, why wouldn’t she still want those things at age 81? Who is to say that she is not like me, with her libido still going strong? And who is to say that she isn’t interested in being intimate, simply because it feels good, and because she is with someone whom she trusts, someone she might also find attractive, and someone who finds her attractive too?

Maybe it’s the same mindset that makes most children unable to picture their own parents having sex. We all know they must have, since we are here as proof. We have birth certificates that prove our mothers were pregnant and gave birth, so unless we have evidence of artificial insemination, or immaculate conception, we know that at some point our father was fucking our mother. And long before she became our mother, she was a woman who likely was horny too, and attracted to the man who would fuck her.

My 81-year-old friend? I shouldn’t be having these questions. Would I have them about a 40-year-old woman? No, and my current partner was not subjected, even in my own mind, to this same series of questions. So why do I ask these questions now?

I can tell myself that it is out of respect. Like with my partner. I didn’t use certain words until we were more comfortable with each other and had tested the waters with each other. Like cunt. That’s a word I never used before in conversation, and not even in moments of intimacy. Now? Because of where we have moved together as partners, and our mutual respect, it is natural for me to tell her how much I love fucking her cunt, or to eat her cunt. And she will use the same words with me. I can call her my cum slut. I can tell her I want to cum inside her ass. Or on her tits (and not use the more clinical term, “breasts”). That takes trust and respect.

Or maybe it is out of fear. Because the truth is that I am more than three years into the most wonderful partnership with the most wonderful woman. I am not looking for anyone else, or anything else. I don’t ever want to hurt my partner by my actions or my words. And I fear that sharing a meal with my 81-year-old friend might be more than just a meal, and I wonder what might be on the menu beyond dinner.

I wonder whether all of this is just in my head. Flattering myself that someone else is interested in me. Is this just ego on my part?

If it is real, and if my friend sees the possibility of more than just a shared meal, what does she want? I won’t know unless I ask, and if I ask, am I moving the discussion beyond the confines of my internal monologue and into the real world of sending her signals?

And what do I share with my partner? My only answer is everything. The truth. So if I share my thoughts, what if she says I should not be afraid, and I should see where things would lead? What if I get my partner’s blessing to share myself with my friend?

We have gone together to a swinger’s club, quite a few times. Most of the time, we simply share our intimacy with only each other, with an audience, but with nobody else joining in. But on one occasion, we joined another couple, and I was asked to play with the other woman’s breasts. That’s as far as I would go, and even that made me uncomfortable, mostly because that other woman was very visibly impaired by either drugs or alcohol, and the issue of consent is paramount. I had concerns about her capacity. And to be truthful, the experience did nothing for me.

On another occasion, a man asked permission for my partner to hold his cock. Basically, he offered to buy her a drink if she held it for five seconds. My partner was wearing her collar and leash, so it was my permission to give. While my partner did it, I know she wasn’t entirely comfortable.

But in the right circumstances, would we include a third person in our intimacy? Or would my partner be comfortable with me engaging with another woman, especially where there was a level of safety, with a friend, and full transparency?

I wouldn’t know unless I asked, and I would ask first. I wouldn’t act first and then ask later.

So, getting older does have its advantages. Yet it also has its questions. And risks. And temptations.

Because my 81-year-old friend is a beautiful and sexy woman, and if I am not misreading some signals, there is the possibility that she wants to share more than just a plate of food.

If I were a completely unattached man, I would likely not be asking many of these questions. And I would be going into this no differently than I would with any other potential sexual partner. I would not assume, and I would listen. I would not be timid, but I would not force anything.

And if she wanted me to suck on her clit, after sucking on her nipples, then I can think of no more delicious dessert after sharing dinner together.

At my age, I am not afraid of rejection. I’m not afraid of disappointing anyone with who I am. I am not afraid of the gossip the next morning, among the social circle, reporting as to what kind of lover I was. Been there, done that, and moved on to worry about what is truly important instead.

I think the only thing I am afraid of is finding out that I am right, and that what is my reality doesn’t only exist in my own imagination, but exists in someone else’s mind too.

Maybe I am afraid of finding out that age really is only just a number, and that my friend sees me as an Adonis, even a grey and saggy one.

Because part of the advantage of getting older is finally accepting that my imperfections are what make me who I am, and are what make me attractive to my partner. And knowing that a woman’s beauty is, to use the cliché, more than skin deep. At least to me.

And if the signals are being read correctly, then what is it that my friend sees in me? And will I be able to see that in myself?

The next chapter will be written when the next events are written in real life.