Ricardo and Laia had been married for fifty-three years. They were sleeping less now they had reached their mid-seventies. They’d go to bed at eleven, read a bit and sleep. Then they’d wake at about five and pick up their books again.

They loved reading. They attended church most weeks. They still attended the local festivals.

Their daughters were both married and had long since left home. Ricardo and Laia lived for their community interests, their church and their three grandchildren, although they were all now teenagers on the cusp of adulthood.

On Laia’s seventy-sixth birthday, they woke as normal. Ricardo made breakfast in bed.

“Happy birthday, my love.”

He’d bought a card and inside was a photo of them on their wedding day, half a century ago. There he was in his military uniform, tall and handsome. There she was, her hair long and brown and curly.

“Thank you.”

They ate in silence and drank coffee. Then Laia spoke.

“You know, it was ten years ago tonight that we last made love.”

“No? Ten years?”

“Exactly ten years.”

They both digested this information. But there was no hurt or anger. They still loved each other, but the ravages of age and health problems each of them had suffered had caught up with them and put an end to sexual activity.

“You know, I never told you this. But it was on my birthday that I first… lay with a man.”

Ricardo’s eyes widened a little.

“Really?”

“Yes. My nineteenth birthday. With Pol, from my class at school.”

Ricardo raised his eyebrows. He’d heard her mention this boy before. He had known he hadn't been her first already, and he had been curious, in truth.

“Tell me more,” he said, smiling.

“We both went to the same party. We weren’t together. We were friends. Classmates, you know. It was very sensible. There was dancing, but no drinking. We waltzed and twirled… I waltzed about the hall with various boys. But Pol…”

“Yes?”

“He held me tight around the waist. And he looked into my eyes. And he was so handsome, he had lovely brown eyes. And he smiled. And brushed my cheek. I wanted to kiss him there and then.”

“And did you?”

“Not there and then.”

“When?”

“In the park, as he walked me home.”

“And what happened then?”

“We kissed and… I felt him… getting… the normal reaction.”

“Kissing you gave him an erection. I’m not surprised, the young devil. And then?”

“We got to his door. He still lived with his parents, of course. So did I. We couldn’t just… do it.”

“So, what did you do?”

“He whispered into my ear. He told me there was a discreet hotel he knew that let couples in with no questions asked about marriage.”

“You went there?”

“Not that night, can you imagine explaining that to my parents? No, we kissed goodbye at the door.”

“But you went there another night?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me more, my love. Describe it to me. I want to picture it.” Ricardo was rubbing his penis through his pyjamas, but it was flaccid.

“I shouldn’t… it’ll upset you.”

“No… no, it’s nice. I’m picturing you young and attractive, in your prime. It’s beautiful. I want to. Go on.”

“You won’t be hurt?”

“No… no, go on.”

“Pol and I fixed a night when we lose our virginities together. We lied to our parents and said we were visiting friends out of town. Then we checked into the hotel. I was so nervous! We sat on the bed and kissed. Pol unbuttoned his shirt and I helped him pull it off. There was just a small bedside lamp on, and the light was low and yellow. It was very sexy seeing him shirtless. I don't know why, but I really remember looking him over at that point. His belly was hairless but his chest was not. Pol undid my dress from behind and then it came off, but I was shy and covered my breasts. I crossed my arms over my chest, but Pol took hold of my wrists and pulled them away firmly. He knelt and kissed my breasts through my brassiere.”

Ricardo closed his eyes. He was visualizing the scene his wife was describing and rubbing his cock as he did. Just for a second, he felt a little swelling in it. He hadn’t been hard for four years, not even once.

“Go on,” he whispered.

“I unhooked my bra, and Pol leapt onto my chest. He kissed them like they were the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. And as he did, I was starting to feel… different. Between my legs. I pulled him close and kissed him firmly. We lay on the bed and kissed, naked above the waist…”

“Who moved lower first?”

“I did. I made Pol lie on his back and I undid his trousers. I pulled them down, and he was obviously… ready.”

“I can see it, Laia. I’m seeing you young and beautiful and bare-breasted. Your hand is reaching for him…”

“Yes. I pulled his pants down and his cock was naked and hard in front of me. I’d never seen one, remember, so I stared at it. Then I took it in my hands.”

Ricardo was now hard enough to be able to jerk, and he reached for Laia’s hand. She reached into his pyjama trousers and gripped him. Jerking his penis up and down, she continued.

“I took off my panties and, very slowly, he entered my vagina. He was so hard! My hymen broke, which stung a little. It was quite unlike anything I’d experienced before, having a penis inside me. I lay on my back and Pol pushed firmly inside me. I threw my arms around his neck and held him close….”

Just then, the memory grew in Laia’s mind. Her memory conjured up Pol’s masculine odour, and her body recalled his hand as it ran up her naked thigh. She could see his face smile at her as he pressed firmly against the top of her pussy, then fumbled for her clitoris. She began to jerk her husband’s cock more firmly. Laia began to feel warm inside, as she had not for years, and she couldn’t help but wonder what had become of Pol, whom she had not seen for forty years. She realized that she had preserved him in her mind as young as he had been then. What would he look like now, a man as old as her husband?

Ricardo was feeling great. It was wonderful to be erect again. Wonderful to be sexually awake. It made him determined to cheat death a little longer. It made him feel alive. He kissed his wife.

“Go on,” he urged her. “How long did it last? Did you stay on your back?”

“No. I didn’t stay on my back. He went in and out, in and out, in and out…”

Ricardo looked over and imagined Pol pumping his young wife. He imagined her as she had been, vibrant and vivacious and… naked.

“But he pulled out of me and then he lay on his back. I had to fumble at it, as I’d never tried that position. I tugged his penis and guided it inside myself.”

And she recalled what it had been like, feeling that cock slide into her all those years ago.

“I rode him. I bounced back and forward on his dick, and I fondled my breasts and… the way he looked at me, as if I were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen…” She closed her eyes.

“How did it feel?”

“Wonderful. I felt more beautiful and attractive than I ever had before up to that point. I’d always thought myself rather dowdy and frumpy. But there, naked and in that lamplight with a naked man fixated on me, I felt so sexy.

“Pol was making me very… active inside. I looked down at him, it was like he was hypnotized and it was me holding all his attention. I rubbed his chest then I reached down and found my clitoris. I stimulated myself and between that and Pol’s penis I had an orgasm, the kind that bursts quickly and then is over. I wanted to cry out, but I stuffed my fingers into my mouth to stop myself.”  

Ricardo conjured up the memory of the noise his wife made when she came, the noise he knew so well, and that made his hand seize hers and jerk his dick harder and harder and suddenly he orgasmed, spraying semen onto his hand, her hand and the bedding.

“Ahhhhh… yes,” Ricardo moaned.

Laia said nothing, but that was almost exactly the sound Pol had made when his orgasm had burst into her. She’d felt him swelling inside her and thrust ever more urgently from below, and she’d longed for him to come, longed to experience what it was like to give a man sexual joy, and then, with a gasp, he came…

“When Pol came inside me, I was sad it was over, but also so happy. It was a lovely experience. A blessed first time, really, considering some girls do it in a car or a back alley. Anyway, that’s my story.”

Ricardo nodded thoughtfully. Then, slowly, he said, “I would tell you about my first time… but I know you remember our wedding night.”

“25th of April, 1953. Your first time, and my second. Well… third, strictly speaking!”

They giggled.

Ricardo asked her to tell him of her second time with Pol that night, and she did. She told him how Pol had taken her from behind while they lay on their sides, his left hand running through her hair and his right hand caressing her breasts. She told him how Pol had brought her to orgasm a second time by pumping her hard from behind while she was on her knees. She told him how she had helped Pol finish by giving him a blow job. Ricardo imagined his wife exploring her budding sexuality all those years ago and he grew hard again, and this time he entered Laia and they were able to make love for the first time in a decade, their desire for intimacy reawakened and their bodies responding again at last.

However different it was from their first time together, Ricardo and Laia made love on their creaking bed with their creaking bodies and they both felt deep gratitude that fate had gifted them their long, long love story. Neither would have had it any other way.