Last night my delectable husband and I had delectable sex.  He is 75, and I am 68 and I have ruptured disks and a deformed right leg from surgery gone awry so that I cannot bend my knees.  He has weak arms. Even so, we have found our way to fulfillment together.

Our adjustments under these restrictions are coming up, but let me give more background.

In addition to being a retired professor of writing and a poet, I am a veteran of thirty odd semi-serious relationships ( I know–wow)  and until three years ago, scarcely a day of true intimacy, the latter demanding the ability to have sustained closeness with a partner– over the course of days, weeks, months and years.

Never before has the difference between intimacy and encounter been more evident to me.For, three years ago  a miracle took place in my life; someone I had longed and longed for, with whom a few passionate sparks and an attempt at a life had tanked almost immediately after it began, disclosed to me that he returned my feelings–he had had an epiphany and realized he loved me.

I will never forget our impassioned confessions to each other that night, in the twilight of my bedroom, that it took several weeks to shuck him of his jeans and t-shirt, and me, of my fear that it was all a fleeting dream.

From the vantage point of being 35, even 45, the notion of people our age having sex is discombobulating at best.  We envision frail and wrinkled people thrashing around on a bed unable to make the heavenly chaos of youth and vigor.  We make jokes and we say, TMI or “Epic Fail” to our friends on this topic.

But, you too, dear reader, are one day going to be 68 with a lover/husband in his 70’s or a similar configuration.  Then you will see that while there are physical changes of various kinds, impairments, even, the heart and mind and body are still the same heart and mind and body you have always had.

Our odyssey has taken us on a circuitous route from paraphernalia marked “Adults Only” on e-bay, to the family doctor, to the pharmacy, and home again. Orgasm is not a goal; lovemaking is a process and it is, indelibly, about love.  And patience, and communication.

We have three physical aides we get out when we have a “date” together.  A small vial of Astroglide–so silky, with just the right viscosity.  A piece of rubber tubing both ends of which are threaded through a wooden bead to make an easy to tighten band– with remarkably effective uses– and, a 20 mg tablet of Cialis taken several hours beforehand.

What we do takes us each to the heights of pleasure as much as anything either of us has ever experienced.  Adjustments to his good effect:  my mouth, sans upper denture.  To my benefit, our foreheads touching, while he massages me within and I touch myself.  We take breaks, and kiss, and smile at each other.  We play sultry soul and lie in the half-light, and take our time.

In essence, very erotically, we help each other achieve rapture in ways we would not have ever discovered without our obvious challenges.

It is all beautiful, delicious and easy.

I post this, well outside my own comfort zone,  to offer hope to those who think that impassioned sex late in life is game over, or unseemly, or not worth the effort. It most certainly is worth experimenting and learning.  It is red-hot erotic, truthfully, intensifying our intimacy and causing me to foolishly write all sorts of lyric poetry.

He doesn’t seem to care that I carry extra pounds, that I am not as svelte as I used to be.  And the last thing on my mind as we foray into the realm of pleasure are any of his foibles, or that he has lost most of his hair.  We are given over to the moment and to pleasing each other.

As he lies back on the pillows on full display, I am only thinking of what an Adonis I am blessed with– all that male beauty and our  mutual hunger. There is nothing to be afraid or ashamed of– nothing.

You won’t want to miss it, dear friends.