Sex and the 60 - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

...who’s the sexiest and most irresistible of them all?

My mother used to say that she felt like a 23-year-old well into her 70’s (probably well into her 80’s but she lost her mind to Alzheimer’s and literally became a 5-year-old!) Anyway, I used to look at her face, with its crepe paper skin and white hair and wonder how she could delude herself. Clearly she was an old, old woman and looked it…but somewhere along the way I’ve begun to understand. If I stay away from the mirror I am that 20-something-year-old. In my mind I still have that amazing body that made other women in the Loehmann’s dressing room (remember there were no booths and you had to undress in front of everyone?) all sneak looks at my reflection in their mirrors. I’m the girl who could have a milk shake for breakfast, chocolate cake at lunch and polish it all off with a Dove bar before bedtime snack and not gain an ounce. I never thought I was beautiful or that I had a great body, but once I met Kevin what I thought about me no longer mattered. The reflection in his eyes and camera lens were the proof that I was hot….very, very hot. And you know what? Damn, I still am.

The other day I was in Stop and Shop. Oh, my supermarket is filled with eligible men of appropriate age – some in wheelchairs, others with canes, most tooling around the aisle mid morning with bottles of prune juice in their wagons, more interested in squeezing the melons than, well - squeezing the melons – if you know what I mean. So I was really surprised when I spied a pretty great looking guy at the end of the aisle coming toward me, with no Metamucil in sight. It made me think of another encounter…

…back, back to the early 1970’s when Carrie and I shared a great apartment on 58th Street in NYC with a revolving third roommate. So here’s a telling fact - we had a two bedroom apartment but all slept in one of the bedrooms leaving the other for “COMPANY”. And there was COMPANY…lots of company, for a lot of years. It was during those years that I began to see an interesting pattern. Men would make it clear that they wanted to sleep with me. I’m talking about men with whom I had not even exchanged a word and they were generally not subtle about it. This never seemed to happen to Carrie. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to sleep with her – she was drop dead beautiful and had a great body (you know, most women in their 20’s did then – not like today where muffin tops and jelly bellies are common.) Anyway it was just that men never could bring themselves to be that overt with her. She was the kind they wanted to own while I was the kind they wanted to roll around with.

What was it about me that made perfectly gentlemanly men turn into pulsating animals? Carrie and I had many debates about it. I secretly didn’t care – I’d take the attention in whatever way I got it and good-looking guys hitting on me in broad daylight was definitely attention! We came to the conclusion that it must be the clothes I wore. Something about my wardrobe was turning guys on. And in the interest of science we set out to prove it. So, one day Carrie and I selected one of her outfits for me to wear. I wore it just as she did, shoes, stockings skirt, blouse – all exactly as she wore them and I went to work. At lunch I was on my way to the post office – walking toward 53rd Street and Third Avenue. I saw him half a block away and he was amazing looking. He was about 5’11”, dark brown curly hair, wearing a taupe suit, stripped shirt, a tie and brown Italian shoes. On any other day I would have been more than interested in making his acquaintance, but I was determined to keep the experiment pure. I shifted my gaze away from him not to sully the result. If he passed, and passed without approaching me then it would be settled – I would have to admit I wore a sluttish wardrobe. So that would be nice to know – not that I was interested in doing anything about it - just nice to know. I looked everywhere but at him and then he was right next to me. He leaned in toward me and said. “Hi baby, you are making me so hot I want to…..” Oh my God, even I blushed! In fact it was the most explicit and prurient thing I have ever heard spoken then and even now! Could Carrie’s wardrobe have been even more lurid than mine? Or was it pheromones. You know, the underlying scent we give off that attracts bees to flowers and bucks to does. Well, it was settled then - whatever it was about me would remain one of life’s exciting mysteries.

So back to the other day in Stop and Shop, I could see he noticed me. He was trying to look nonchalant but I could see he was getting a little nervous, perhaps thinking up a good opening line. Slowly our carts neared each other. His striking blue eyes searched my face for permission. I looked straight into them giving him license to approach. I even flipped my hair back with my hand (a gesture that I had read was a subliminal sign – something about the open palm of your hand having some primal affect or something). I stopped my cart by the salad dressing letting him build the courage to make his needs clear. He smiled…

“Excuse me”, I could feel his soft breath in my hair. It sent a little tickle down my spine, how close he got to me and how he whispered. I turned my face up to him smiling my most alluring smile and inviting the intimacy. He said, “I’ve seemed to forgotten…do you know what aisle the Depends are in?”

You see, men are still approaching me in broad daylight! I’ve still got it! I’ve still got it! I swear, I’ve still to it!

See you next time.