The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

As I saw the sunset of my years looming in the not too distant future, I wondered if I should attempt, at the ripe old age of seventy-four, to write my memoirs, the story of my younger years for the edification of those who came after me. I toyed idly with the idea, but I couldn't get past the feeling that there was nothing really fascinating or meaningful enough about those years to warrant wasting anyone's time with it. In thinking about it, one of the problems that became patently obvious from the start was that so many things that I did in my youth and the thoughts I had about myself and others, and about the world, seemed now to have existed in the context of an incredible lack of wisdom, good judgment, and maturity, with such good traits showing themselves, to a certain extent, at least, only as the years began to pile up. The old saying that "Youth is wasted on the young" had begun to run through my mind more frequently. True wisdom comes through one's life's experiences. It rarely comes when we're young, when we need it most.

But something quite incredible has occurred in my life that is worthy of the telling. First though, I should introduce myself. My name is Horace Ripkenhoffer. There was not much that anyone could do about my last name. I did, however, fantasize that perhaps the great Baltimore Orioles baseball player, Cal Ripken, had once had the same name, but had enough foresight to shorten it. As for Horace, I have all my life, until recently, resented that name. My mother claimed that she named me Horace after a favorite character in a novel she had read. I'm sure few mothers today would consider naming their sons Horace. I suffered in school with such corrupted versions of the name as, "Horse-ass," and "Horny-ass."

The revelation that I was attracted to boys and men came suddenly one day---and I remember the very moment---when I was eight years old. I was playing with a friend in my yard, when we heard his mother calling him for dinner. He was wearing short pants and, as I watched him walking home, it struck me that this boy had the most beautiful legs I had ever seen. I'm sure it wasn't a sexual attraction, per se, at that age, but it was a strange attraction nonetheless that I had never felt before. From that time on, I knew that I was attracted to the male body. And I never looked back, as they say. Although I carefully guarded my secret for some years to come, I was never for a moment conflicted over my sexuality, as so many other young men have been.

All through my school years, I was attracted to other boys and men, and even though I thought I was in love several times, I never let anyone know. Following high school, I went into the Army, went to Korea as a combat Infantryman and, at the end of my term of service, I enrolled in college. It was during those years when I fell headfirst into the gay world. I was good looking; I was told by many that I was. I had endless one-night stands and a number of what I called "affairs," although none of them lasted more than a few days. I was a regular participant in the gay bar scene, and was known by many as an "easy catch." I strenuously resisted those who wanted to become my lover for life, and hated it when someone told me he loved me.

My barriers broke down, however, in my sophomore year at college. I fell desperately in love with another young man, and he with me. We had a torrid love affair for three years. But, alas, it ended upon graduation, but not through the fault of either of us. It is a long hurtful story that I shall not recount here.

On the rebound, I re-entered the gay world with a vengeance. But I never quite got over my lover in college---the boy I had always considered the one and only greatest love of my life. No one came close to measuring up. I became jaded and bored with gay people and the all-too-frequent sexual encounters I was having. In fact, these people started to lose their attractiveness for me. I was bored with it all. I had immersed myself too deeply in sex for its own sake. I began finding that a good masturbation session alone with my fantasies in my own bed was, in some ways, more satisfying and erotic.

I truly felt as though I wanted to get away from the gay world, and I developed the twisted idea that, if I got married and had children and lived entirely in the straight world, I could easily renounce my homosexuality, or at least shove it far away from my conscious thoughts.

So, getting married I did, and had two wonderful, loving sons. I lived the proverbial American dream as a respected middle-class suburban husband and father with all the trappings. And I had a successful law practice, as well. But through it all, my homosexuality was always there nagging at me, and I came to realize, after all, that homosexuality was, and always would be, the firm basis of my emotional being. My family never knew. It was my problem, and I never felt selfish enough to "out" myself and risk destroying the family that I had deceived. Although perhaps I should not be particularly proud of it, I did stray from my vows of fidelity on numerous occasions through the years with other men.

We had just had our forty-eighth wedding anniversary when my wife passed away after a short illness. Although I had often rued the fact that I hadn't had the freedom to live the homosexual life I believed I was meant to live, my wife's death left me in a state of uncertainty. Forty-eight years of living a lie had become a part of me and was in my blood. Even though I was now free, I strangely had no desire to run out and become a gay young blade again. I was now alone in a large house, and I missed her presence there. Life simply changed for me too quickly.

In time, I sold the house and moved to a small condo in a newer part of town. After several months, I'd had enough. I wondered if it would be possible to resume my old life again after forty-eight years. I stood naked in front of my full-length mirror. My God, I thought. It's my father I'm looking at. I've become my father! I looked at my torso and wondered why my breasts had shifted lower. And they'd become bigger. I thought, 'I'm almost ready for a bra!' I noted that my balls hung quite low, with each ball easily discernable in the sack. That was good . . . I think. I was always turned on by nice, low-hanging balls. I swayed my hips, swinging my balls from side to side. Nice! I looked at my legs. 'They're still good,' I thought. I remember a young man many years ago who didn't want to do anything with me but kiss and caress my legs. What was his name? Oh, yes, Chip. His name was Chip something, a cute little guy. Wonder what ever happened to him. But the soft layer of hair I always had on my legs had become thinner. I turned sideways and looked at my butt. It certainly was no longer those nice round firm orbs that used to fill out the seat of my pants so enticingly. Mmmmmm. In general, my whole body looked like it had just sagged. Where was all the firmness I once had? I had promised myself a thousand times to take up going to the gym to stay in shape. But I never did. 'Well,' I thought, as I quickly turned away from the mirror, 'I just won't think about it.'

I put on a blue- and yellow-striped short-sleeved sports shirt and a pair of bright blue trousers and white sneakers. I was going to go to a gay bar, and I was going to be with my own kind at last! I looked in my full-length mirror before I left, and the picture I saw repelled me. I was still quite slender, and my clothes fit well, but the clothes were way too youthful for a man with white receding hair, a neck that had somehow gotten shorter over the years, a definite sagging beneath the chin, and deep wrinkles around the eyes. I stood there trying to stretch my neck, but to no avail. I smiled. It didn't help. But at least I still had my own teeth. They were nice teeth, good and straight and white. I had always been complimented on my beautiful teeth.

But the clothes weren't right. I got out of them and slipped into a pair of jeans and put on a dark blue polo shirt, more suitable to my age. I headed for the Embassy Bar, the establishment where I had "come out" almost a half-century before. Halfway down the block I could hear a strange high-pitched twangy sound coming from the place, punctuated by a steady low beat that seemed to send shock waves through the air. As I neared the door, I could tell it was a form of music, so loud it made my ears ring. I stepped inside and tried to see through the haze of smoke. There were bright colored lights flashing all around the room, occasionally shining directly into my eyes. A swarm of young, slender bodies in t-shirts and shorts on a platform at one side appeared to be undulating to the beat. They weren't touching, they weren't looking at each other, but their faces looked as though they were in a deep sleep, oblivious to others around them. I supposed they thought they were dancing. My ears were still ringing and I continued to be blinded by sharp flashes of light. I peered down the length of the bar to see if there might be a vacant stool. I was in luck. There was one empty stool at the end of the bar where it curved in toward the wall. Sitting there, I could get a good view of the faces of all the others at the bar.

Sitting squarely in the middle of it was a rather paunchy older gentleman, looking all flushed and bloated. He was obviously the Grand Dame of the place. Young slender boys would come fussing and fluttering around him as though they were paying some sort of homage to him. He would greet his followers with a pinch on the butt or a good grope, and sometimes a kiss. I remember many years before, almost every gay bar had one of those Grand Dames holding court each night.

The boy sitting next to me looked not a minute over twelve years old and would light one cigarette from his last, producing an unending blast of smoke. I had smoked heavily in my youth, but now I had been smoke free for more than forty years. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt, and the skin on his slender arms looked soft and clear like a baby's skin. At one point he turned to me and said, "Would ya push over that bowl of pretzels, Pops?" As I reached for the bowl, I said, "My name isn't Pops. It's . . . ." I had to think for a minute. "It's Bob." If looking like a "pops" weren't bad enough, I certainly wasn't going to enhance that image by telling him that I was 'Horace.' He simply said, "Well, whatever."

I looked into the faces of those sitting down the length of the bar. Occasionally, they would seem to be looking my way, but it felt like they were looking right through me, not at me. I looked behind me to see if there might be something there that was more interesting to them. But on the wall behind me was a large poster, an etching of two nude men entwined around each other in what apparently was supposed to be an artistically erotic embrace.

I was beginning to feel my lungs burn from the steady flow of smoke being spewed out of the face of the young man next to me. I thought I would attempt to strike up a conversation with him. I said as loud as I could in order to be heard over the din, "You know, I came out in this bar when I was a youngster." As soon as I said it, I thought I couldn't have said anything more stupid.

He looked at me and said, "Oh yeah? When was that?"

"It was back in 1952," I replied. He stared at me and said, "Cool! My old man wasn't even born until 1960."

Great! This adorable child then turned away, still perched on his stool, and began writhing around to the beat of the music with that same far-away blank look on his face as the customers had as they danced on the platform. I could feel the beat in my chest, on my sternum. I remembered where the restroom was and, since my bladder control was not what it once was, I got up and paid it a visit. It was lit only by one very dim red bulb in the ceiling. Leaning against one wall were two young men rapturously kissing each other. Against the other wall was another young man with his pants down around his ankles while his friend was ardently and with great passion sucking him off. God, I thought, as I stared at that penis! When was the last time I was ever able to get myself that hard? There was no urinal in the room, only a toilet. I stood there and peed into it, making the only noise in the room. Because my stream was no longer particularly strong, I stood there making that tinkling and splashing noise for many minutes. Soon I was at the sink washing my hands and looking into the mirror. I remembered looking into that very mirror so many years ago when I would primp my fashionable duck-tail haircut and be so pleased with my looks. It made me sad to see the image it now presented me. But as I looked at myself, I couldn't believe that I had ever worn a duck-tail haircut!

I stayed perhaps another hour, drinking two more beers. My attempts to talk with one or two of those sweet young things as they fluttered by me came to naught. My chest was hurting and I could feel the smoke in my lungs. In addition, my right leg was going to sleep. I finally realized how out of place I was. I looked down into my beer and remembered how, so many years ago, I held sway on that very spot. I easily found myself the center of attention in those days. I was handsome, and I knew it. And everyone else knew it. 'Oh, who am I kidding,' I thought. 'I wasn't that good looking. I was just an easy conquest. Well, it's all over now. Who wants an old fart like me?' I hated it when younger people would look at me in a patronizing, sympathetic way and say so authoritatively as though they had just coined the phrase, "You're only as young as you feel, you know!" Ha!

I paid my bill and got up to leave. As I walked through the milling, sweaty crowd to the door, I noticed I was being looked at---finally. But I could tell by their expressions that they were thinking, "Who's the old guy? We haven't seen him around here before."

Little did they know this was MY bar once! 'I could have had any one of you little slutty pip-squeeks any time I wanted!' Somehow that thought gave me the only satisfaction I had had all evening, and I left smiling.

I went home and threw my clothes into the hamper. They were reeking of smoke. It was after midnight. I stripped down, avoiding the full-length mirror on the back of my bathroom door, and took a shower. Somehow, I couldn't bear the thought of looking at my body again. Wasn't I depressed enough? Finally, I lay on my bed staring out the window at the leaves on an Oak tree rustling gently in the breeze. It hadn't been at all as I remembered it. The music we had back then were tunes like Patti Paige's "How Much is that Doggie in the Window" and music by the Platters. The Embassy in those days had a large black woman behind the bar in a white dress who sang along with the Juke Box. We loved it when she belted out "Lawdy, Lawdy, Miss Claudy" with that seductive, deep-throated contralto voice of hers. Her name was Mary-Ellen. We loved her, and never a word was spoken while she sang.

I lay there wondering how many of those frantic, horny little creatures in the bar that evening were now bedded down with another. 'Oh, why did it all have to change?' I asked myself. I felt tears coming to my eyes. The leaves outside became blurred. I cried. I felt so lonely.

On several more occasions, I went out to some other bars. But it was always the same. I always drank more beer than I should have, no one noticed me, I sat alone, and went home alone. I decided I would never again go to a gay bar. It was now a different world. A strange world, one in which I didn't belong. The world had passed me by. I began to think frequently of the law practice I had given up almost ten years before. I had never really stopped missing the long evenings of writing briefs and the early mornings when I was due in court, excited and exhilarated. After I retired, I had too much time on my hands. Before my wife passed away, we went on cruises, traveled throughout Europe and Asia, and in the summers, spent time at our home on the seashore in Maine. All that was over now and I was alone. I felt as though the great curtain was falling faster and faster on the finale of my life.

My life became one of a television junkie. I watched soap operas until I was almost blind, and overdosed on twenty-four-hour news channels, hating the sight of those pompous newsmen, especially Geraldo, poking their smug authoritative faces into my living room. I cried as pictures of young men who were killed in the war came on the screen. I felt the hurt of knowing they would never see their dreams of a good life come true. But at the same time, I knew they would also never know the loneliness of old age. I would copy down all the web sites shown at the bottom of the screen and look them up on the computer for something to do.

I searched through my extensive library of books. Perhaps my great love of reading would come to my rescue. As I always told my children, reading is the gateway to the world. Having through the years read every book I owned, I selected several to re-read. I glanced idly through books by Edith Wharton, Booth Tarkington, Sinclair Lewis, Rudyard Kipling, and even Noel Coward. Too light. Too frivolous. I needed something serious, something mind-bending. Ah! Voltaire, Machiavelli, Freud, Emerson, Tolstoy! It was no use. At one time, my books transported me into other worlds. But now these great classics accorded me nothing. No pleasure, no satisfaction. I even looked over some of my wife's old paperback romance novels. Why did I ever save them? The covers on them made me nervous and edgy with bosomy women clinging to some of the most gorgeous half-naked men I had ever laid eyes on.

I dragged out the old photo albums that belonged to my mother and father. I looked at the youthful pictures of my mother in costume. She had been an opera singer for a short time. She had a lovely voice. She looked so young and beautiful. But for the last nine years of her life, she was an invalid, and my father spent those years taking care of her in their home, refusing to relegate her to a nursing home. During those years, all the joy and happiness had drained from her face. There was no life left in her. She was simply waiting to die.

Shortly after her death, my father suffered a debilitating stroke. He had always been my idol. He had been a champion swimmer in both high school and college and, for many years after that, retained his sensuously handsome swimmer's physique. I cried as I looked at the pictures of him in his swimming suit. My favorite was a photo taken of him in college as he was being presented a huge trophy. There he stood with his handsome body clothed only in a swimming suit, holding his trophy high in the air with a huge open mouth smile on his face and tears streaming down his cheeks. I wonder if he had ever been as happy since as he surely was that day. When I was young, he would let me run my hands over his muscles and he would flex them to impress me. We would often wrestle on the floor in our underwear and we would laugh and laugh until tears came to our eyes. But then, he too became an invalid. The stroke had erased his memory and he grew old and in despair before my eyes. He never wanted my brother and me to be burdened with them in their old age. But my wife and I decided to have him live with us during the last few years of his life. He was only a shell of his former self. I would help him bathe, and after all those years, I could never keep the tears from coming as I would once again run my hands over what was left of those strong arms and legs.

My wife also eventually lost her will to live when cancer swept through her body. Now I wondered how my own end would come. I was also determined not to be a burden on my children. I had plenty of money saved, as well as a good lifetime care policy. At the first sign of a problem, I would check myself into a nursing home. Yes, that's what I would do. My children and grandchildren did not deserve to have that laid on them. I had not burdened them with the pain I often suffered from my secret homosexuality, and I would not do so now. I had been well seasoned to bear my own burdens, and I would continue to do so when the ravages of old age overtook me eventually.

I longed for something to do with my hands. When I sold the house, I also sold all my woodworking tools. In my well-equipped shop, I had made a good deal of the furniture for our house, most of which had now been given to my two sons and their families. That made me happy. But I missed that all-consuming hobby.

One evening, while sitting at the computer, I decided on a whim to type in the words "Gay Men" and clicked the search button. I was astounded at the page after page of sites that had some connection, no matter how remote, to Gay Men. I played around with it and eventually connected into a message board where gay men were writing each other about gay sex. One of the messages intrigued me, and I sent an e-mail to the writer. I don't remember what I said or what he said, but I soon began corresponding with others.

For awhile I was exhilarated by the chance to correspond with other gay men who couldn't see me or know how old I was. My own masturbation activity even started to increase as my fantasies became more vivid from some of the messages I was reading. But somehow, I began to lose interest. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for in these anonymous e-mails I was writing and receiving. But just about every one of these people was asking me to tell him the measurements of my penis. The length, the thickness, etc. I had never in my life been asked how many inches long my penis was. It never occurred to me to actually hold a ruler along side of it. They would ask me to describe myself, how much hair I have on my chest, do I have a hairy ass crack, do I like to fuck, am I a "top" or a "bottom." I had no idea what THAT meant. They would describe themselves in erotically elaborate detail, and it was clear that these people on the message boards were mostly horny young men, with an occasional horny forty or forty-five year old. From time to time, I would open up a new e-mail to find a close-up photo of the writer's penis, sometimes with cum dripping from it, accompanied by the short message: "Thought you might be interested in what I look like." Aside from the fact that most penises in the world look quite similar, I was still left without knowing what the writer himself looked like. It was not long before I began to realize that many young gay men described themselves only in terms of the dimensions of their penises.

Every now and then I would tell these correspondents that I was in my seventies and had white hair when they asked for my description. That was always the kiss of death. The e-mails would cease forthwith upon that revelation. I could almost hear the clunk of the 'Delete' button as they fell upon it. From time to time, I was invited to meet the person on the other end for "hot sex." The last thing I would ever do was to meet some stranger I met on the internet for hot sex. In those cases, too, the invitations were quickly withdrawn when the correspondents learned of my unthinkable age. One prolific writer on the board frequently referred disparagingly to "dirty old men" in his messages. I finally sent a message to the board taking this person to task for using this phrase, which might be offensive to the older readers. I received a reply which read simply, "If you're offended, don't read it." I took his advise.

After about three or four weeks of this useless nonsense, I let it rest. I went out and bought a pack of cigarettes. Although I hadn't smoked in the past forty-five years, I thought perhaps I could recapture some of the pleasure I enjoyed in my youth. After lighting one up, I became frighteningly dizzy, a terrible feeling. I threw the pack into the wastebasket. It had been five dollars wasted. They were only twenty-five cents back in the good old days! So it was back to the drone of newsmen on TV and "Frasier," the only sit-com that amused me consistently. The gorgeous men who were showcased on the soap operas drove me crazy, and I didn't need that kind of sexual frustration. Were there really men alive on this Earth who looked like that? Had they been manufactured in some flesh factory?

One day, in my boredom, I turned on my computer and checked my e-mail. There was only one message in my inbox, and that had been sent the week before. It was from someone whose name was Hieronymus Horr. My God, I thought. Here is someone with a name worse than mine! What mother would ever name her son Hieronymus? Wasn't the name "Horr" bad enough?

I had used the name "Bob," rather than "Horace," on the internet in order not to put off any prospective correspondent. The message from Hieronymus Horr was:

"Dear Bob: I saw your message to another person on the Male to Male Message Board and thought I would send you an e-mail. I had almost given up on that board because of the inane nature of the people using it. But I noted that you told this person that you are seventy-four years old. I was most relieved to learn that one of my contemporaries is out there somewhere. By coincidence, I am also seventy-four. I lost my wife a little over two years ago, and I have been wanting to re-connect with my true sexuality . . . with little success, I might add. It has been discouraging, to put it mildly. From the message that you sent this other person, it seems to me you are an intelligent and sensitive soul. I wonder if you would care to correspond with me and tell me about yourself, and I will do the same. It would be nice to talk with someone who understands what it means to be up in one's years. If you would rather not, I will understand. Sincerely, Rony"

I stared at the message. I actually felt my eyes fluttering and going in and out of focus. Rony! How clever! He uses the middle four letters of Hieronymus! I read the message again, and then again. I lost count. I felt my hand shaking as it rested on the mouse. I immediately wrote back and thanked him for his letter. I told him my name was Horace, not Bob. I told him about the death of my own wife not long before and that I had had the same experience that he had had with trying to correspond with other men on the internet. I told him about my grown sons, who are now successful attorneys. I even went so far as to tell him about how lonely I was and my lack of success in trying to find new gay friends. After I sent my letter, I tried to prepare myself that I would never hear from him again. I was sure I had told him too much, and he would not be impressed.

But the very next day, I received a very long e-mail from Rony telling me that he was ecstatic to have met me over the internet. He told me about his own children, a son and a daughter, both classical musicians. He revealed to me that he was an artist---a painter and a sculptor. He went into great detail about the mental anguish he'd suffered, not only from the death of his wife, but from the awful truth that he was no longer of interest to anyone in the gay world, which he had abandoned so many years ago. I cried when I read his letter. We were so much alike. I suddenly had a great longing to reach out and hug this dear man.

Over the next several weeks, Rony and I exchanged e-mails every day, often twice a day. We shared with each other all the fears and doubts we suffered, we opened our hearts and spilled out all the hurt and pain that had been stored there for so long. We came to believe we were the only two people on Earth who understood what it meant to be old.

Rony lived in Denver and I lived in Dallas. We soon abandoned our e-mail correspondence and used the telephone. His voice was gentle and kind and, at times, I could sense the loneliness in it. But I understood. Oh, how I understood! Weeks went by, and we both longed to see each other. But we each admitted that it had been unthinkable that we would agree to meet anyone in person who we met on the internet. But this was different. We had not sent our pictures to each other. I could not get myself to send a picture for fear he might not like what he saw. I had to be careful. I couldn't lose this one. I suspected he felt the same. But we did describe ourselves as best we could on the phone. I was heartened to realize that Rony had not once asked about how long my penis was or whether I had hair in my ass crack.

We began to feel so close. Rony finally said there was no way we could go on like this without ever seeing each other. He invited me to come and visit him for a few days at his home in Denver. I had no reservations about it and agreed immediately. Even though Rony and I had come to know each other so well, I still could not believe that I had agreed to meet him in person.

Since visitors to the Denver airport were no longer allowed to be in the gate area, he said he would meet me in the Baggage Claim area. When I de-planed in Denver and proceeded to baggage, I saw him. He was standing in a crowd of people, but I saw him. He looked exactly as I thought he would. He had white hair, full on the sides, but balding on the top. He was tall and slender, two or three inches taller than I. He had really big ears that stuck way out from the side of his head. He had warned me about that. But they were cute and sexy ears and made him look like a little boy in a way. I wondered if he would recognize me, but as I looked at him, he was looking straight at me with a big smile. We hurried forward and threw our arms around each other. I had to fight back the tears. I actually had my arms around someone I had come to love very much. When we pulled apart, I saw tears in his eyes. And that did it. We both cried openly on each other's shoulder for several minutes. We didn't care about the people around us.

When we drove down his street, I knew what house was his. Beautiful flowers and flowering bushes stretched across the front of his house, with colorful flowers in pots hanging from the eave of his front porch. He had told me that gardening was one of his passions. It was exactly like I thought it would look. Once inside, we again fell into each other's arms. We were both old men, but he was beautiful. I looked past the wrinkles in his face and saw only the sparkle in his eyes, and felt the strength of his arms wrapped tightly around me. Oh, how I had yearned for a man to put his arms around me.

Rony took his fingers and ran them lightly over the deep crow's feet that fanned out from my eyes. He whispered, "Every one of those lines, Horace, represents a hurt that you suffered one time in your life. I look at them as a badge of the strength that you've had to make it this far."

He took my suitcase and told me to follow him. We went into his bedroom where he set it down and showed me the bathroom in case I wanted to freshen up. He said, "I thought about our going out to a nice place to eat tonight, but I've decided I'll fix dinner right here. We'll have some wine and just be alone together at last."

We sat on his patio and ate and drank wine with a magnificent view of the Rocky Mountains to the west and a beautiful flaming sunset beyond them. I commented, "That is one of the most romantic things I have ever seen."

Rony said, "Ace. Do you mind if I call you that? You know, short for Horace?"

"I'd like that, Rony," I said. "Can you imagine kids today being named Horace and Hieronymus?"

"Heironymus and Horace are grand, noble names from history," said Rony. "Bobby and Tommy are puny names." Rony looked at me with a loving smile and said, "You're a romantic, aren't you? There's that far away look in your eyes as you look at the mountains. Your eyes betray the longing I know you've been feeling in your heart."

We talked well into the night. We poured our hearts out with all the sincerity we could. We told each other about our past loves, all the hurts and disappointments we suffered in our lives. But now here we were, irretrievably finding ourselves once again in love. Rony and I---two seventy-four year old geezers---hopelessly in love. We even admitted our physical infirmities. I with bursitis in my shoulders and high blood pressure. And Rony with arthritis in his knees and chronic prostatitis with a dangerously high PSA.

Rony motioned for me to join him as he sat on the chaise lounge. We hugged and kissed each other's aging faces. They could have been the faces of seventeen year-olds. I enjoyed touching and kissing his face no less. It didn't matter. We each had someone in our arms. We cared for each other for who we were, not for how we looked. We weren't thinking about sex at that moment. We thought only about being together at last.

Then Rony suddenly held me out at arm's length and said, "I want to be with you for the rest of our lives, Ace. I need the love you have for me. And I hope you need the love I can give you."

Then with a twinkle in his eye, Rony said, "I know that if we were fifty years younger, love would never enter into it until we saw how good we were in having sex. Those days are gone, Ace. At least for me. I want the kind of love we have developed for each other, even though we haven't yet tested out our sexual prowess, such as it might be."

Leaving the dishes and wine glasses on the table, we both got up and went in to bed. I had a slight fear as we both stripped that he would not like the way my body looked. I was not as proud of it by any means as I was in my youth. We stood naked in the middle of the floor and looked at each other. Our bodies were seventy-four year old bodies, but we saw an eroticism in them just the same. We rushed forward and clasped each other in our arms and then fell over onto the bed.

We lay there examining each other's body. We looked at each other's penis. They were both soft, and we laughed knowingly. We kidded about all the service those penises had given us throughout our long lives. Rony looked down at them sympathetically and flipped both of them with his fingers, saying, "These poor little buggers have done a lot of work through the years. And they're tired now. The poor things!"

We rolled over onto our sides facing each other and grasping hold of each other's ass cheeks. They weren't as firm as they once were, by any means, a little flabby, in fact, but it felt nice to hold on to the cheeks of the one I had come to love. It didn't matter. It just didn't matter. We were two old men with seventy-four year old bodies who had found each other. I didn't care if my penis never got hard. I just wanted him in my arms. I wanted this extraordinary loving soul in my life more than anything I had ever wanted.

Rony leaned in and touched one of my nipples with the tip of his tongue, making me jump. They were as sensitive as they ever were. As we caressed each other's bodies, that old sexual horniness started to take hold of us. I could see that our penises were beginning to get only partially hard. We stroked them, but they were still a little too soft. I said, "Wouldn't this be embarrassing if we were here in bed with some hot young stud who wanted to get fucked?"

"Ace," said Rony with a chuckle. "I've traveled that road not too long ago, and it's more than embarrassing. But I don't think we're too soft, do you? Maybe we could . . . ."

We turned our bodies around and got into a 69 position. The taste of Rony's warm pre-cum and the feel of his penis on my tongue and lips was an erotic pleasure I hadn't experienced in many years. I could hardly believe that this was happening. We both slowly got hard enough where we were eventually able to cum. We kept each other's cum in our mouths and kissed each other, letting it dribble down our chins. Although our sex was far from the hot, frantic sex we had had in our youth, it brought back memories of the old days.

Rony said, "You know, I go to a Urologist for treatment on my prostate. I told him about my difficulty these days in getting hard. And he prescribed some Viagra. So when I get really horny sometimes and have to jerk off, I take a pill to get me hard. It really works. Have you ever used it?"

I said, "I've thought about it, but I've never asked for a prescription."

"Well, tomorrow night, we can both take some and then we can act like a couple of hot studs again. But I have to take it an hour or two before I'm ready."

We stayed locked in each other's arms and slept. For some reason, we both woke up around 3:00 a.m., and were ready to go again. This time, after working our penises up to a reasonable hardness, we lay close to each other and jacked off. We stroked for a long time, but we were both able to cum together, and we watched each other's sperm dribble out of our penises and over our hands into our pubic hair.

Rony said, "You wouldn't believe that at one time in another life I could shoot up to my chest. But now the old pumping mechanism ain't what it used to be."

I said, "Same here. And it's a lot messier trying to wipe the sperm out of our pubic hair than it was off our stomachs and chests! But I guess we're lucky we can cum at all.

The next day, Rony and I took a picnic lunch and drove up into the mountains. We visited Central City and Georgetown, where Rony picked up a couple of antique picture frames at an antique store. We found a grassy slope, far from the road, looking down over a beautiful valley. We lay there, eating our lunch. When we were through, we stripped off our clothes and pressed our bodies together, rolling down the slope for a great distance. There we kissed and made love, and our orgasms were extra special as the chilly wind blew down over our naked skin from the mountain side above us. It was a wonderful day. The beautiful, tranquil scenery with Rony at my side had now become my world. It was the world I wanted to live in for the rest of time. His touch, the sparkle in his eyes, the soft, velvety sound of his voice, the warmth of his breath on my check. It was all more than I had ever dreamed of having.

That night, we took our Viagra and soon after fell into bed. As we kissed and caressed each other, we felt our penises gorging and throbbing and becoming as hard as when we were teenagers. We played with them and sucked them, and we fucked each other. Perhaps that old saying that you are as young as you feel had some truth in it. I felt virile for the first time in many years, and I even felt handsome and desirable as Rony kissed me and looked at me with love in those twinkling eyes of his. Afterwards, we lay there and told each other how much we were in love.

When we awoke in the morning, I felt an ache in my lower back. At first I thought that it was some arthritis acting up after our active night. But I remembered that I had had a kidney stone several years before, and this was the same feeling. Rony massaged my back to see if it would help, but the ache became worse. I knew what it was. That sick feeling in my stomach that I remembered from before started to get worse. Rony quickly dressed and helped me to get dressed. He walked me to the car and drove directly to the hospital. Rony became very upset with the Emergency Room personnel when we had to wait so long before I could be seen. Eventually, I was taken back to a cubicle, where I was sedated. I went to sleep, but was soon vaguely aware that I was being pushed into a large tube where I was given a catscan.

When I awoke, I could see out the window that the sun was just going down. At first, I didn't know where I was, but I felt someone close to me. When I opened my eyes wider, there was Rony standing by the gurney, holding my hand and gently rubbing it. I looked up at him, and I can't describe the feeling I had when I saw the sweetest smile on his face and that wonderful twinkle in his eyes. He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.

In a few moments, a doctor came in and told me that they had found a very small kidney stone, only a little larger than a grain of sand. But he assured me a stone didn't have to be large to cause the kind of pain I had. He told me that the stone had moved into a position where I would pass it in another day or two. He gave me a screen that I was to pee through. It would catch the stone as it came out, and I was to bring it in to be analyzed.

After the doctor gave me a small sample bottle of pain pills, he sent me on my way. When we got back to Rony's house, we sat out on the patio with some wine. I looked at him and tried to tell him how deeply grateful I was about his kindness that day. But I had trouble choking back the tears that kept welling up in me. I loved him so much. The sky was clear and the stars were as bright as I'd ever seen them. The ache was not as bad as it had been. It came and went. But each time I had to pee, Rony would come with me, insisting that he hold my penis and the screen under it for me. As we stood there together, he would always pull my head over onto his shoulder and say, "Just relax, my love."

Late the next day, the little black pellet, not much bigger than a grain of sand, popped out onto the screen. We both yelped with joy at this success.

Over the next few months, I visited Rony again, and he came to Dallas several times and stayed with me. We were now at one with each other, and our love was as solid as a rock. Rony had a small house in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he spent part of his summers. He did most of his painting and sculpting there. We talked about living together. It was inevitable. We couldn't go on being apart. He suggested that we both sell our places and move permanently to Santa Fe where the scenery was breathtaking and where there were many like us living there. It was a no-brainer. The decision was made instantly. That is what we would do.

After I sold my condo and disposed of most of my furnishings, I moved to Denver, where Rony was in the process of selling his home. We drove to Santa Fe, pulling a small U-Haul trailer filled with Rony's art materials and the meager personal belongings we took with us. We rented a small house on Canyon Road, Santa Fe's artist area. It had a nice airy studio on the back of it where Rony could work. Everyone was so friendly, and many came to our house to welcome us. There were quite a few gay couples like us in that area, some as old as we were, and we felt at home almost immediately. We soon became best friends with an older couple, but not quite as old as Rony and I. Their names were Jim and Jay, both artists.

My life was now a dream that had become real. Every day, I awoke with pure joy in my heart. I had brought with me most of my favorite and valuable books. While Rony worked in his studio, I would often walk up the hill on Canyon Road and sit in a little clearing with a book. From there, I could look down on the whole city of Santa Fe with the mountains and valleys stretching beyond as far as I could see. Sometimes Rony would go up there with his easel and brushes, and I would sit behind him while he painted. I never tired of watching him with his floppy brown felt hat and old checkered red and black flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up above his elbows. He would rock rhythmically from side to side as he painted, peering around his canvas at the scenery he was painting. One day I lay down in the grass behind him and went to sleep. When I awoke, Rony presented me with a small drawing he had made of me lying there with my mouth open. He laughed and told me he couldn't resist.

Rony's knees were beginning to bother him more than usual, and he started to use a cane. One of our friends who lived next door came to the house one day and presented him with a fine Ash wood cane that he had made. On the head of it, he had fashioned a beautifully carved face. Looking at it carefully, we discovered it was my face, which he had taken from a photograph he had seen of me. Tears rolled down Rony's face unabashedly. He was so grateful for such kindness. In the evenings I would sometimes massage his sore legs. He always said that the feel of my warm hands on his legs helped more than anything else.

Rony sculpted with clay. I was so taken with the beautiful objects he made that I asked him if he would instruct me so that I might try my hand at it. He worked with me a little each day, and I was soon able to produce some simple bowls and trays. It helped me fill the void left when I stopped working with wood and sold all my tools.

There was a small bar down the hill on Canyon Road where we would often go in the late afternoons for a glass of wine with our friends. The clientele was both gay and straight. One day, sitting at a table fairly close to us were two young men who appeared to be in their early or mid-twenties. They were obviously put out with each other and their conversation could be clearly heard.

One of them said, "I don't appreciate being left alone all night when you're out fucking around."

"I told you, I was just visiting a friend."

"Listen, queen, I know where you were. You were out sucking cock. You were with that cocksucker Jason last night."

"No I wasn't"

"Don't fuck with me. I know that's where you were."

"How do you know that?"

"I have friends that saw you."

"Well, so what. I happen to know you've sucked Jason's cock plenty of times."

"You're nothing but a fucking slut. You know that? You're a fucking cock-queen. I bet you let that little whore fuck you, too. I suppose I'm not good enough for you."

"Well, you're not the best fuck in the world. Jason's got the longest cock I've ever taken."

"Oh, he does, does he? Listen, bitch, you can have his fucking' cock. I can easily go out and find any cock I want."

"Oh, yeah? The best you could do is get some old fart's cock like those old men over there. Why don't you go over and ask one of them if you can suck his little shriveled up cock?

"Fuck you, queen!"

At that, the spurned one got up and stormed out. The other one slammed his fist on the table and left by another door.

Rony and I looked at each other with amusement. Rony smiled with mock admiration and said, "Isn't it wonderful? Isn't youth wonderful? Young love! It can't be beat! Do you realize one of us almost got our shriveled up cock sucked by one of those charming young men? Were we really like that once, Ace? Was cock-worship really the only thing that mattered to us? It's too bad, Ace, that it takes so long for guys to reach their age of enlightenment, as we have."

"You're right," I said. "And now that we've reached it, it feels good. It feels really good! You and I may have a couple of shriveled up cocks between our legs, but we've got . . . ." I stopped and looked at him and saw that little twinkle in his eyes and felt his hand under the table, squeezing my thigh. "Oh, Rony, let's go home and talk about it!"

We laughed as we hobbled and ran back up the hill and into the house, locking the door behind us.