At Sixty I Recovered the Desire I Thought I’d Lost

My name is Carmen and I never thought I’d write something like this, but for months I’ve been reading other women’s confessions and in the end I decided to tell mine. I’m sixty years old. I’m not in bad shape: I walk every morning, I watch what I eat, and there are still people who look at me in the street. But it’s one thing to be attractive and something very different to feel, and for years I had stopped feeling.

My husband, Andrés, is seventy-three. He was never jealous, quite the opposite. When we were young he loved taking me to nudist beaches just to see how other men watched me. We had a full sex life, without taboos, for a long time. Then the children came, routine set in, and because of a medication he’s been taking for years, erections became impossible for him. Desire faded away like a candle that no one protects from the wind.

Last year we moved to a plot of land we owned on the outskirts of the city. The area is quiet, with houses and gardens. Next door lives Bernardo, a seventy-six-year-old widower, an old acquaintance of ours, a good man, the sort who ends up alone and is grateful for a set table. Some time ago we opened a gate in the fence to go from one property to the other, and since the move he’s had dinner with us almost every night.

***

In July they rented out the house on the other side, which had been closed up for years. A family arrived to spend the summer, and with them a son of about twenty. It annoyed me a bit: just when we were spending our first summer in the countryside, I lost the privacy to sunbathe the way I liked, with nothing on.

On the third or fourth day of staying topless when Andrés went out with Bernardo, I noticed something among the hedges separating the plots. At first I thought I was mistaken. On another slip I confirmed it: the boy was spying on me. He was half hidden, still, watching me.

The logical thing would have been to put on my bra and go back inside. I didn’t. I was surprised that such a young man would take notice of a woman my age, and instead of shame I felt something that had been asleep for a very long time. A sort of tingle. I decided to play along.

What are you doing, Carmen?, I asked myself. But I didn’t stop.

Over the next few days I turned the ritual into something almost ceremonial. As soon as I was alone, I let my tits hang free and waited for him to appear among the leaves. Lying in the sun, I felt his gaze like a hand. Before getting into the pool I would linger under the outdoor shower, unhurried, so he could see everything clearly. One afternoon, when I went back to the house, I realized I was soaked, and not from the water. That night, in bed, I touched myself thinking of him. I had an orgasm that left me shaking, one of those I no longer remembered.

***

One afternoon I decided to go a step further. When I got out of the pool, I pulled at the edge of my panties as if I were adjusting them, and I let my ass show several times. I reached the lounger with weak legs and lay down face down. My heart was racing. When I turned over to look for him discreetly, I was stunned.

The boy was masturbating. Looking at me, at a woman three times his age, he was jerking off among the hedges. It didn’t last long. He came and disappeared, leaving me disoriented, with a mix of embarrassment and dirty excitement I didn’t know what to do with. The only thing I was thinking, while pretending to sleep under my cap, was what had just happened and, why lie, how damn frustrating it was that it had been lost among the plants instead of being used by me.

—Carmen, we’re here —I heard suddenly.

I jumped. It was Andrés and Bernardo, back from shopping. I still had my breasts uncovered, and the neighbor was looking at them like someone finding treasure.

—Don’t cover them up, woman —Andrés said, perfectly calm—. We’re going inside. If you want, you can even take off the bottom part, since you’ve got a tan line.

He said it with such natural ease it completely disarmed me. I went in to shower with my head spinning. Under the water, I couldn’t erase the boy’s image, and my hand went on its own to where it wanted to go. I imagined myself leaning against the fence, my breasts hanging down, his young hands holding my hips. I had another orgasm, stifling my moans against the tiles.

***

That night, in bed, Andrés got affectionate. He caressed me, rubbed his body against my leg and kept talking about the neighbor. It didn’t take me long to understand that the topic of Bernardo turned him on. And I admit I was a hypocrite: I scolded him for his comments while I secretly went along with the boy next door.

Since Andrés could no longer penetrate me, for years we’d been using other methods. That night I gave him oral sex and used my hand, and all the while my mind was far away. To get myself off, I settled for his fingers inside me and his tongue, at least because he still knew how to do that well.

In August I had my birthday. My children came, we invited Bernardo and also the tenants. I was nervous all day, not knowing if the boy had realized I was playing along, or how I was going to behave in front of everyone. But he was impeccably proper, almost solemn. He only needed to call me ma’am. And I knew perfectly well what he did when no one was watching.

In September the tenants left and the house went back to being empty. Everything returned to normal. Well, not everything. I had woken up again, and there was no way to put that out.

***

What did change was Andrés. He got it into his head that Bernardo should see me naked. I stopped covering myself in front of the neighbor, first my chest, then almost everything, and I discovered that it turned me on to watch him look at me with that restrained desire. Andrés enjoyed it even more than I did, making comments about my body and urging the other man to respond.

One afternoon I asked my husband what he was aiming for with all that. He answered me with a calm that left me ice-cold.

—Bernardo is very lonely. We’ve talked about it many times. He needs a woman to keep him company.

—And that woman is me? —I asked, fearing the answer.

—I wouldn’t mind sharing you with him —he said, as if he were commenting on the weather—. You’ve known each other all your lives, you get along well. Whatever you do in private stays between us.

I couldn’t believe it. And yet, somewhere deep down, the idea didn’t horrify me as much as it should have. To get out of it, I half-joked that if he wanted me to sleep with someone, he should find a young guy, because for old men I already had him. He laughed. I laughed. But we both knew something had been said out loud and could no longer be erased.

***

Things truly went off the rails on New Year’s Eve. We had dinner with both families, and after one o’clock, when the children left, the three of us stayed alone by the fireplace. Andrés opened a bottle of cava “to relax us a bit” and started telling intimate things about us: the nudist beaches, things you don’t tell. Later I found out he had already told Bernardo those things; he only needed me, in front of him, to confirm them.

The neighbor dared to ask me directly, glass in hand, very explicit questions. Part of me was scandalized; flirting by the pool was one thing, talking about my private life was something else entirely. But Andrés encouraged me to answer, and it wasn’t the cava loosening my tongue: it was the dirty excitement. I said more than I should have. I dodged the most compromising questions with the excuse of going to the bathroom.

When I pulled down my underwear I checked and found I was wet. At my age, that already seemed like a miracle. I touched myself for a few seconds until I recovered some sense and sat down.

When I said I was going to change and went into the bedroom, I took off my dress. I heard Andrés’s voice behind me.

—Come in, Bernardo, if she stays like that it doesn’t bother us either, does it?

A shiver ran through me. Suddenly I was standing in front of the two of them, completely naked. It took me a moment to react and grab the dress to cover myself.

—I prefer her au naturel —said the neighbor without blinking—. It would be the best way to start the year.

***

I threw them out of the room without making a scene, mainly because the words wouldn’t come. But my pride stung. If they wanted to see me so badly, I was going to give it to them my way. I put on a pair of thin leggings, with nothing underneath, clinging everywhere, and a tight, slightly sheer T-shirt. I went back into the living room.

—You’re a pair of pieces of work —I told them—. You can’t be left alone.

As I passed in front of them to sit down, Andrés grabbed my hips and, with a lewd comment, asked Bernardo if he wanted to touch. I jerked: that man did it without hesitation. I brushed it off by calling them dirty old men.

—It’s normal to think about sex when you see such a beautiful woman every day —the neighbor replied, without a shred of shame—. I’ve been alone a long time, Carmen.

He had just been coming on to me in front of my husband, and my husband was nodding along.

—I’ve already spoken with Carmen —Andrés said—. We agreed you can keep her company when you need to. From my side, there’s no problem.

I pretended not to understand. I said I already kept him company, that to me he was just another member of the house. But Bernardo didn’t let up: that nothing would please him more than being with me, that all that was missing was for me to agree. And Andrés, hammering away, insisting that I didn’t need to hide anymore, that I could walk around the house however I pleased.

I started laughing from sheer tension. For a moment I actually pictured myself having him with the neighbor, and everything was moving too fast. That night, luckily, nothing else happened. Well, nothing: my husband had offered me to the neighbor in front of me, and I hadn’t said no.

***

When we were alone I scolded him, of course. But I’d be lying to anyone reading this if I said I wasn’t aroused. The idea of being shared, of choosing someone younger myself to feel a whole man inside me again, had set me on fire completely.

In bed, Andrés came after me again, rubbing his body against my leg, whispering in my ear everything the neighbor would want to do to me. If he hadn’t been so obsessed with the idea, he would have noticed how wet I already was: his fingers went in without any effort. And it wasn’t Bernardo himself —he’s no Adonis, he’s short and rough—, but the shameless way he desired me, the feeling of being wanted again.

—And what excites you about it? —I asked him, while I caressed him slowly to punish him a little.

—Knowing you’re doing it —he answered calmly—. And then having you tell me all the details. That would be the best part.

I hadn’t expected that answer. I told him, in the sweetest voice I could manage, that the day I slept with the neighbor I would tell him everything, leaving nothing out. It was like flipping a switch: he came instantly, staining my leg. I’d ruined his punishment, and on top of that he was euphoric.

Then it was my turn. I asked him to settle between my legs and use his tongue again. I squeezed my breasts with both hands while he licked me and slid his fingers inside me. I tried to think about the tenants’ boy, but my mind kept drifting on its own toward the neighbor, toward everything my husband promised he would do to me. I had a long, scandalous orgasm, and a name slipped out that wasn’t Andrés’s.

When I caught my breath, without thinking, I heard myself say yes, that I accepted being Bernardo’s companion. By the look on his face, I thought he was going to come again.

—Should we break you in tomorrow itself, to start the year right? —he asked, and he meant it.

I burst out laughing. I told him these things take time, that I wasn’t ready, that if he really wanted it, he should ask for it as a Three Kings Day gift and maybe he’d get lucky. I asked him for a towel, turned over, and with my body still vibrating, fell asleep.

I don’t know how this will end. I only know that at sixty, when I had written everything off, I felt alive again. And that, no matter what anyone reads, I’m not going to apologize for saying it.