This was sent to me recently and brought a tear to my eye, a great email from a regular friend and a fantastic reminder of past fun times, always looking for new friends, im in the Midlands Coventry area, so local people get priority, on with the great message i received. so fitting as this month is the anniversary of the time of the year i lose my late wife Sue
I was stirring my coffee, watching the steam curl upwards, a miniature, fleeting echo of the anxieties swirling inside me. Fifty-three. Fifty-three years old and feeling…dormant. That’s the word. Dormant.
“Honestly, Sue,” I’d been saying, probably for the tenth time this year, “it feels like a piece of me has just… faded. It’s not like I’m expecting a whirlwind romance, but… intimacy. Even just that. It’s been years.”
Sue, bless her, listened without judgment, unlike some of the other women I'd cautiously broached the subject with. They’d offered platitudes about self-love, or suggested dating apps (the horror!). Sue, though, just nodded, her expression thoughtful. She and Martin were always a bit…different. They lived life on their own terms.
“You know,” she said, finally, after a long sip of her tea, “Martin and I… we’re into the lifestyle.”
I blinked. The lifestyle? I immediately conjured images of leather and whips, the kind of thing you read about, not something your sensible friend from book club would admit to.
“What do you mean?”
She explained, carefully, a slight flush creeping up her neck. They were open, she said, to exploring different dynamics. Martin enjoyed connecting with women. And, and this was the part that made my jaw slacken, she would be…comfortable with me being one of those women. With me being with Martin.
“I… I don’t even know what to say,” I stammered, feeling a ridiculous mix of shock, confusion, and, if I was honest with myself, a flicker of…something else.
“Think about it,” she said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “There’s no pressure. I know it sounds… unusual. But honestly, it works for us. I truly enjoy seeing Martin happy, and if that happiness can include someone else, who am I to stand in the way? Especially someone I care about, like you.”
Martin. I had met him a few times at parties Sue threw. He was… striking. Not conventionally handsome, but with a mischievous glint in his eyes, a quick, dry wit that always made me laugh. He was smart, he was engaging, and he was, undeniably, younger. Early forties, I guessed. He’d always struck me as the kind of man women my age fantasized about – confident, charming, and utterly uninhibited. The type who belonged on the cover of a magazine, not chatting with a slightly frumpy woman at a potluck.
I spent the next week in a daze. Could I actually consider this? It felt…transgressive. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more a strange sort of excitement bubbled up inside me. It wasn’t about falling in love. It wasn’t about needing a partner. It was about reclaiming something I thought I’d lost, rediscovering a part of myself that had been dormant for far too long.
I called Sue. I told her I was willing to try.
The first time was awkward, hesitant. We met at a small, discreet hotel on the outskirts of town. Martin was, as always, gracious and charming, putting me at ease with a self-deprecating joke and a warm smile. He made it clear he wanted to ensure I was comfortable every step of the way. And then… It happened.
And it was…amazing.
He was a truly exceptional lover patient, attentive, and utterly focused on my pleasure. He anticipated my needs with an almost unnerving intuition. It wasn't just the physical experience, though that was undeniably incredible. It was the freedom, the lack of expectation, the pure, unadulterated fun. It felt like shedding years, like waking up from a long .......
Three months in, and it’s become…a regular thing. Once or twice a month, we meet. It's always planned in advance, always with Sue’s full knowledge and consent. It’s a strange arrangement, objectively, but it works.
And the truly astonishing part is how utterly normal it is at work. We’re in a small office, but somehow, we’ve managed to keep it entirely separate. Martin is in the IT room, and I'm in Marketing. We collaborate on projects, exchange pleasantries, and generally behave like colleagues. There’s a playful undercurrent, a subtle awareness between us, but it's contained, professional. The key, I think, is that there's no emotional entanglement. It's purely physical, a shared secret that adds a delicious little frisson to our otherwise mundane workdays.
I can honestly say I haven’t felt this alive, this confident, this…desirable in decades. I used to worry about becoming invisible, about fading into the background as I got older. Martin has, in a way, made me feel seen.
I often think about Sue. She’s truly a remarkable woman. She’s given me a gift, an unexpected, liberating gift that has reignited a part of me I thought was lost forever. I still marvel at her generosity, at her willingness to share her husband. Mine and Martins fun continues even after we lost Sue back in 2019 to ovarian cancer.
It remains a secret I cherish. A testament to the fact that pleasure, and even passion, knows no age limits. And sometimes, the most unexpected solutions come from the most unexpected places.
I was stirring my coffee, watching the steam curl upwards, a miniature, fleeting echo of the anxieties swirling inside me. Fifty-three. Fifty-three years old and feeling…dormant. That’s the word. Dormant.
“Honestly, Sue,” I’d been saying, probably for the tenth time this year, “it feels like a piece of me has just… faded. It’s not like I’m expecting a whirlwind romance, but… intimacy. Even just that. It’s been years.”
Sue, bless her, listened without judgment, unlike some of the other women I'd cautiously broached the subject with. They’d offered platitudes about self-love, or suggested dating apps (the horror!). Sue, though, just nodded, her expression thoughtful. She and Martin were always a bit…different. They lived life on their own terms.
“You know,” she said, finally, after a long sip of her tea, “Martin and I… we’re into the lifestyle.”
I blinked. The lifestyle? I immediately conjured images of leather and whips, the kind of thing you read about, not something your sensible friend from book club would admit to.
“What do you mean?”
She explained, carefully, a slight flush creeping up her neck. They were open, she said, to exploring different dynamics. Martin enjoyed connecting with women. And, and this was the part that made my jaw slacken, she would be…comfortable with me being one of those women. With me being with Martin.
“I… I don’t even know what to say,” I stammered, feeling a ridiculous mix of shock, confusion, and, if I was honest with myself, a flicker of…something else.
“Think about it,” she said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “There’s no pressure. I know it sounds… unusual. But honestly, it works for us. I truly enjoy seeing Martin happy, and if that happiness can include someone else, who am I to stand in the way? Especially someone I care about, like you.”
Martin. I had met him a few times at parties Sue threw. He was… striking. Not conventionally handsome, but with a mischievous glint in his eyes, a quick, dry wit that always made me laugh. He was smart, he was engaging, and he was, undeniably, younger. Early forties, I guessed. He’d always struck me as the kind of man women my age fantasized about – confident, charming, and utterly uninhibited. The type who belonged on the cover of a magazine, not chatting with a slightly frumpy woman at a potluck.
I spent the next week in a daze. Could I actually consider this? It felt…transgressive. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more a strange sort of excitement bubbled up inside me. It wasn’t about falling in love. It wasn’t about needing a partner. It was about reclaiming something I thought I’d lost, rediscovering a part of myself that had been dormant for far too long.
I called Sue. I told her I was willing to try.
The first time was awkward, hesitant. We met at a small, discreet hotel on the outskirts of town. Martin was, as always, gracious and charming, putting me at ease with a self-deprecating joke and a warm smile. He made it clear he wanted to ensure I was comfortable every step of the way. And then… It happened.
And it was…amazing.
He was a truly exceptional lover patient, attentive, and utterly focused on my pleasure. He anticipated my needs with an almost unnerving intuition. It wasn't just the physical experience, though that was undeniably incredible. It was the freedom, the lack of expectation, the pure, unadulterated fun. It felt like shedding years, like waking up from a long .......
Three months in, and it’s become…a regular thing. Once or twice a month, we meet. It's always planned in advance, always with Sue’s full knowledge and consent. It’s a strange arrangement, objectively, but it works.
And the truly astonishing part is how utterly normal it is at work. We’re in a small office, but somehow, we’ve managed to keep it entirely separate. Martin is in the IT room, and I'm in Marketing. We collaborate on projects, exchange pleasantries, and generally behave like colleagues. There’s a playful undercurrent, a subtle awareness between us, but it's contained, professional. The key, I think, is that there's no emotional entanglement. It's purely physical, a shared secret that adds a delicious little frisson to our otherwise mundane workdays.
I can honestly say I haven’t felt this alive, this confident, this…desirable in decades. I used to worry about becoming invisible, about fading into the background as I got older. Martin has, in a way, made me feel seen.
I often think about Sue. She’s truly a remarkable woman. She’s given me a gift, an unexpected, liberating gift that has reignited a part of me I thought was lost forever. I still marvel at her generosity, at her willingness to share her husband. Mine and Martins fun continues even after we lost Sue back in 2019 to ovarian cancer.
It remains a secret I cherish. A testament to the fact that pleasure, and even passion, knows no age limits. And sometimes, the most unexpected solutions come from the most unexpected places.
