I knew it was her by her eyes. I had changed a lot, but she hadn’t. I remembered those eyes.

They weren’t the first thing I noticed the first time I saw her. Her breasts, covered yet displayed by a peach scoop-neck pullover, were large enough to need a bra. But the thin cashmere fabric plainly showed the contours of her nipples and the absence of an undergarment.

Her eyes matched the dark-chocolate brown of her hair and held a conspiratorial promise. Her demeanor reflected the free rebelliousness of the era as she lifted her top off over her head, her hair somehow staying unmussed.

Bending to remove her shorts made her mounds hang but not dangle. When she turned and straightened up, in profile her nipples added a darker outcropping to the enticing curve of her bosom. Her round butt overflowed her thighs like a proper scoop of ice cream.

She raised her arms, stretching joyfully into the air, lifting those symmetric spheres. Her face glowed with the delight of the spontaneous liberty she had taken without a care for the context or potential consequences in that subway station. Turning to leave, she looked back over her shoulder to acknowledge the plaudits of everyone who saw her performance.

That brief, anonymous encounter affected me over the years in untraceable ways. As in the plot of a rom-com, unexpected events led to a reunion.

Uncle Bob had died and Aunt Helen moved into an assisted living apartment, so she no longer needed their house. At loose ends, I agreed to help get it ready to sell. My aunt had it appraised “as-is” and said she would split any extra with me if I got it into better shape.

“Here are the keys to your uncle’s workshop,” she said. “You can use, keep or sell whatever is in there.”

I confess to wistful excitement at finally being allowed to see the workshop. When my family would visit, it was always off-limits. Uncle Bob was loved for making clever and fun gifts for us, sometimes taking months to complete them, and he enjoyed surprising us.

“Sometimes he would spend the whole day in there,” she recalled. “He had a recliner so he could take a nap without coming upstairs.”

With my list of things to fix, I descended the steps into the dimly-lit basement. Opening the workshop door, I entered a bright, tidy, organized work area. Various tools hung on the pegboard walls; boards and larger materials were against the far wall. A fan had turned on with the light to bring in fresh air.

One wall was lined with tall metal cabinets. Unlocking the first revealed sturdy metal shelves filled with additional tools, fasteners, parts, and materials, all properly stored and clearly labeled.

Expecting more of the same in the second cabinet, I was confused when I opened it. From floor to ceiling, about a foot apart, were shelves holding hundreds of magazines—men’s magazines. Consistent with the rest of the workshop, the shelves noted the publication name and dates below each stack. The third cabinet was like the second. A glance showed issues going back over fifty years.

My first encounter with such magazines was when my older brother left for college. Whether he forgot them or intentionally left them for when he came home, a handful of issues were hidden in the attic. My mom didn’t like to climb the ladder so she would send me to retrieve or store things for her. When I discovered them, I couldn’t stop to investigate.

Although I had technically masturbated by then, I had not done it to climax. Teachers and priests had told me that even touching myself was wrong; my parents were probably too embarrassed to even discuss it. Needless to say, I did it anyhow, guiltily, and earned regular reprimand in the confessional. The boys all preferred Father George, who gave empathetic penances.

The naughty excitement amplified the pleasurable stirrings when I would massage my genitals. With my privacy insecure and temporary, I hadn’t yet done it long or intensely enough to discover the ultimate destination of that journey. I waited until I knew I had the house to myself for a few hours before returning to the attic.

The warm summer day made it hot, but I was also flushed with anticipation. To that point, I had not seen a naked woman; pictures of women in bikinis or lingerie were enough to inspire my sinful behavior. I lingered on the sexy but non-nude cover photo, caressing myself through my pants, before daring to explore further.

Stunning is the right word for the first picture I saw. It immobilized me. My penis pulsed and swelled as my eyes drank in the exposed skin. It begged for more room and more contact, so I lowered my pants and underwear. The underside of the head seemed almost to ache and I cradled it in my palm. My gentle touch seemed to relieve it somehow, but it twitched against my hand.

Turning the pages, I scrutinized the other views of the model. The poses seemed alternately provocative and awkward with my limited understanding of human anatomy and how the law of gravity affected this previously unseen flesh. My excitement and enjoyment grew until I reached some pages of text.

Flipping forward, it was not long before I reached more pictures. It seemed impossible, but the new female form drove the first from my mind. Would it have been the inverse if I had encountered them in the other order? Suddenly, what I had thought was the summit was merely the base camp. As I opened the center page, I knew Miss March was the pinnacle.

Unknowingly, my body had reached the same conclusion. The grip of my hand on my organ, intended to soothe the strange agitation building there, had the opposite effect. Only in retrospect, with repetition and calmer appreciation, did I come to understand what was happening.

At the time, the mixture of fear and surprise at what had been triggered was overwhelmed by the wave of ecstasy that flashed through me. Only when the pulsing warned of an emission did I turn in panic from the vision of carnal delight to see my eruption spurt forth.

I watched helplessly as the uncontrolled jets hit my shirt, the magazine, and the surrounding area. My body jerked in electric exhilaration, allowing me no thoughts, no intentions. How, when, or why it stopped, I didn’t know. I had run out of substance to pump, but my muscles kept going through the motions, paying lesser but still sweet dividends.

For a few minutes, I wallowed in drowsiness from the experience and the heat of the attic. The discomfort of my position on the unfinished boards brought me around and I stared at my situation in aghast. Unprepared, I used my t-shirt to mop up the fluid that littered the attic and desecrated the magazine. Fortunately, the other issues were untouched, so I decided to take the one I had damaged, hoping my brother wouldn’t miss it.

I found my own hiding place for the magazine I stole, revisiting it and meeting the other women residing in its pages. Better prepared, I studied the other issues in the attic when I had the opportunity. Over time, I learned how to please myself in various ways, never quite repeating the surprising and saturating intensity of that first time. Only later was that event transcended by the addition of a partner.

There in Uncle Bob’s workshop, I felt a kinship with him and perhaps all men. A space at the end of one shelf had a few different lubricants and several boxes of tissues. A neat pile of hand towels seemed out of place until I thought about the chair. He must have spread one out when he did more than nap in it.

I marveled at the care and scale of his operation. Could Aunt Helen be unaware of it? Did my three cousins know? With no evidence, I eventually concluded that, if they had known about it, they would have done something when he died. I decided to keep Uncle Bob’s secret.

Technically, my aunt had given me the contents of the workshop, so I didn’t think I was cheating her to take possession of the magazines. My Catholic guilt made me work that much harder to get her more money for the house, spending more of my cash on paint and other things. Checking around, I came up with an estimate for the price if we sold his collection, then made sure I earned it by increasing the value of the house.

As I worked, I regularly sampled my uncle’s archive. By nature less orderly than he was, I honored his memory and kept everything the way he had it. It was fascinating to see the evolution of those publications over half a century. Considering the wide availability of more realistic, more explicit, and more varied images, not to mention motion and sound in videos, they might be considered too tame for modern letches.

The first few forays into the stacks were unsatisfying. Interesting and erotic, they were too interesting and not erotic enough; I had to watch some clips on my phone to finish. Then I discovered a photoshoot of a woman who went on to become one of my favorite porn stars.

I had been enjoying stroking myself to the other models in that issue but none had given me the final incentive before I discovered Aster. She wasn’t yet blonde, D-cupped, and half-shaved. It was unlikely that either that name or the one she later used as a porn star was her real name. An innocent young farmer’s daughter, according to the plot of the layout, she looked the part with walnut brown hair in bangs, modest natural breasts, and unbarbered pubes. In those days, they didn’t show the gynecological bits so you could only imagine what those curls obscured.

Although her poses were no more lascivious than the others, her familiar face and knowledge of her future history shifted me into a higher gear. Mentally retrofitting her porn personality into that body got my heart and hand pumping faster.

Over the years I had refined my technique, which made the activity neater as well as more satisfying. Knowing I had enough libidinous fuel for launch allowed me to delay the countdown, extending the excitement and edging to a more extravagant explosion.

Her bending to pick a flower wasn’t just accidentally displaying her inexplicably bare behind; her smile welcomed my intrusion as I held that famous ass and slipped inside her. Her voice urged me faster and harder and I suddenly shared that urgency. The amalgam of sight, memory, imagination, and stimulation drove me to my certain reward. The intersection of novelty and familiarity built extra pressure, so much so that my first spurt reached my chin, a rare event in the last decade. My hand recreated her trademark squirm, trying to generate the jolts of exhilaration only her co-stars got to experience.

While my puddle cooled on my belly, I wondered if she would even remember those old photographs. As I understood, models often posed for hundreds of pictures and were usually unaware of how many and which were published where and with what context and alleged biographical information. Cleaning myself up, I mused about the gems this treasure trove contained.

Months passed and my exploration continued as did my work on the house. Almost finished, I had been packing and moving the workshop incrementally to my place. Friends helped with the disassembled workbench and cabinets, but I had boxed and taken almost all the magazines myself.

Alone or with a partner, I had learned the value of self-control in increasing and savoring pleasure. I suspected—I hoped—that she would be in that stack I left for last. I could have checked at any time, but if my memory was faulty or for some reason that issue wasn’t there, I would have lost the pleasant anticipation of the past few months. If I had confirmed she was there, I could not have resisted becoming reacquainted immediately.

My heart raced as the moment arrived. I had replayed that day in my head, trying to taste again that first taste, trying to reenter that naïve mindset, trying to unlearn the magnitudes and complexities of subsequent sexual experiences.

I admit it. I squealed with joy when I recognized the cover as I riffled through the pile. I had worried about this moment; would the editing of decades of remembering make the original seem counterfeit? Such fears dissolved when I saw her eyes.

Absorbing each picture, refreshing each mental pixel, with delight I realized an unexpected boon. Except for those few moments during that first encounter, she had always been marred by the residue of my deflowering ejaculation. Now my uncle had restored her to perfection.

Reconciling my idolizing recollection with the photographs, I saw no sign of pubic hair or genitalia that memory had imputed. Yet she exuded vibrant sexuality that was sufficient even for my middle-age sex drive.

Back then, she had been a decade older than I was. Now, she was decades too young. In my mind, I became her age. At her inspiration, I too dispensed with my clothes and danced in that station. When she turned to leave, I followed.

Her bohemian studio apartment was full of art and exotic smells. Ignoring physics, we dove onto her waterbed and embraced, my surging cock finding the warm wet clasp of her unseen pussy. We rolled and bounced and sloshed as we took turns leading and following. I suckled those beautiful boobs and massaged that marshmallow ass.

The full-length centerfold provided all the material I needed for my fantasy. A well-turned leg created legal modesty while the pose, aura and those eyes evoked wanton lust. My hand supplied the reality of the imagined cacophony of thrusting, squirming, and tossing as the liquid location matched and contradicted our movements.

The crescendo reached its limit. In a science-fiction time warp, my young self, my old self, and my imagined contemporary shared that moment. The freshness of innocence, the wisdom of age, and the vigor of youth melded. We each quaffed deeply that essence of woman preserved in those few pages as we sank into the hot euphoria of orgasm.

Needless to say, I had taken precautions to ensure no harm would come to her this time. As I cleaned up, I left her looking at me, and could not resist smiling back.

In calmer moments, I wonder about her. Had she grown old or died young? Which of the infinite possible lives that led up to and beyond that scene was hers?

Could she have predicted how many for how long would see her preserved at that moment? Could she possibly have understood what she gave to me?