Loading...There are not many things that would get me up so early on a Saturday morning, but there I was watching the sun rise from East Beach. I must admit that I spent the last two Earth Day Celebrations sacked out for most of the day after a night of heavy consumption. But just the thought of catching a glimpse of Madeline Hannah Waller giving a speech on the local environmental efforts was certainly worth getting up early for.
In my college days, I was very involved in environmental issues, actually met my first ex-wife at a rally at the college. She was majoring in law, specializing in environmental law. We both read Ms. Waller’s books, stood in line to get her autograph and later, as my wife graduated, we worked together with her as activists in her ‘Beachfront Now’ campaigns.
I thoroughly enjoyed working for Ms. Waller, but after a number of years I found the pay levels for activists weren’t enough to raise a family, so I started looking for a job in my field while my wife continued with Ms. Waller. I guess it was ironic that I landed a job with a major oil company, but I was able to smooth things over with my wife and her employer because my job was to work toward improving the safety and environmental concerns of the company. At least that’s what I believed.
On March 24th, 1989 after a productive time in the industry, I learned that I was just a company pawn after all. On that day I suddenly learned I was assigned to “damage control” with the environmentalists for an incident with one of my company’s tankers. The name of that tanker was the Exxon Valdez and I was the one wearing the Exxon hat trying to soothe a lynch mob. My wife was first in line with the mob and within the week I was out the door. I lasted only a few weeks later with Exxon because I seemed to have difficulty rationalizing the accident to the satisfaction of the company.
Okay, okay, that was a number of years ago and I went on to acquire ex-wives number two and three while working in a number of different positions, mostly for companies with environmental problems. Mind you, each time I was to work to help clean up the companies, but I proved to be almost as successful at work as I was at home. So now, here I am, between wives and between real jobs. Yeah, schlepping beer and burgers to a bunch of kids half my age is not what I’d call a real job. It pays just enough for my occasional bouts of overconsumption.
Ah, but this morning I am sober, clearheaded and enthusiastic to take part in the Earth Day festivities, which, I am proud to say, includes a massive cleanup effort along the shores of the gulf and the waterway. I even have my Earth Day + 3 tee shirt, that means April 22 plus three days for the cleanup.
Now, enough about me because just as the sun peeked over the nearby bait shop, Madeline Hannah Waller stepped up onto the stage, tapped the microphone a couple of times and then took a deep breath, “Welcome to the 29th Annual Earth Day celebration here at Crystal Beach and the 35th Annual Beachfront Now Cleanups. Yes, six full years before we finally got the country on the ball, we were here every year cleaning up the beaches and all over the news the rest of the year trying to raise consciousness about pollution, air quality and our environment.
“Yes, for six years before “Earth Day,” before the political speeches, celebrations, hell, six years before these fancy tee shirts, we worked hard to cleanup. Funny thing, back in 1970, when we had our first Earth Day celebration, it seems that the date happened to coincide with the 100th birthday of Vladimir Lenin so I think we had more FBI and CIA agents in the crowd than environmentalist. Gladly, they have joined our ranks, and now, along with millions of other concerned citizens, they show up each year for the cleanups.
“Of course Earth Day is just one day, it’s a celebration for sure, but I see it as more of an opportunity, an opportunity to show each and every person that they can make a difference. By picking up some trash today, they might think twice about throwing something out a window, by lugging some tires now, they might consider recycling in the future.
“Now there are a lot of people I need to thank for helping in today’s affair and I’d like to start out with my advisor and council…”
With that, I ducked my head and began humming to myself as Ms. Waller introduced my first ex-wife. She continued with the speech introducing other important officials and volunteers for this year’s celebration, but I heard what I needed to. Like always, her speech was short, to the point and sweet. In fact, like always, Ms. Waller was a short and very sweet woman.
Her hair went from a dark black to that beautiful silver gray that adorn the most beautiful of older women, and while she wasn’t as lithe and sleek as back in the early days I worked with her, she still was an incredibly sensuous woman. I say sensuous because it seems so much more dignified that sexy, more appropriate somehow.
I don’t know, perhaps my view of her now is slanted, slanted by how much I had wanted her back in the days I was married to my first wife, back in the days she was married to a man who went on to become a Senator, but she still is one of the most beautiful women I have ever known. Hell, she’s old enough to be my mother, but I feel more drawn to her than I ever was to any of my ex-wives. I wonder if that might be why… Ah, no, it can’t be.
The speech wound down and I began heading down to the beachfront, glancing back occasionally to see if Ms. Waller’s entourage was heading out too. One thing about Maddy Waller, she wasn’t just a figurehead for the movement, she got out and worked each and every year. I would have tried to work my way closer to her, but I was sure ex-wife # 1 was in the entourage so I kept my distance.
I really didn’t expect the work at the beach and along the waterway to be as tough as it was, but as we worked back into the dunes and along the roadways we kept finding all kinds of trash. By early afternoon we had a number of piles that would take eighteen wheelers to haul. Most of the workers were pretty much finished for the day, all they needed were for the trucks to arrive and the loaders to move the trash into the trucks.
I slipped into a nearby restaurant, washed up a bit and then headed out to the water to rinse off a bit more. It was a bit chilly that early in the season, but it was invigorating. As I came out of the water I noticed a person walking down the beach, it wasn’t until she got a lot closer that I could see it was Ms. Waller.
I gave her a quick wave and waited for her to walk past, when she turned and walked over to me.
“Martin, is that you?”
“Yes, I wasn’t sure you would remember me.”
“Oh Martin, how could I forget you. You know, I thought I saw you in the crowd this morning. It’s so nice to see you.”
“It’s nice to see you again Ms….”
“Martin, it’s Maddy, you know that.”
“It’s nice to see you again Maddy. You are looking good.”
“You mean I’m looking good for an old woman.”
“No Maddy, believe me, you are looking good, wonderful in fact.”
“Well, I survived another Earth Day, hard to imagine, next year will be the thirtieth.”
“That’s a lot of trash cleaned up.”
“And how many people did we get involved over the years.”
“Judging by today’s crowd, there’s been a lot. But what are you doing now?” I asked.
“Well, at the end of each of these celebrations and cleanups, I like to take a quiet walk along the beach and just take a look. There’s a spot just up in the dunes I go. It overlooks this portion of the island and I watch them load up the trucks as the sun goes down. Later, as it starts getting dark I watch the campfires light up along the beach, one by one.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Want to join me?”
“Sure, it will be nice to watch a sunset with a pretty lady again,” I replied.
“Oh come now Martin, you flatter me too much, but it is nice to hear.”
I followed her as she headed back away from the water and up into the dunes. The sand along the sides of the dunes shifted easily and was difficult to walk on, but by winding around some of the grass and plants that survived in that shifting landscape we slowly made our way up to the top where several dunes converged.
“I wouldn’t have expected you could get so high up. I mean from down on the beach you can’t really tell how high up this is.”
“Yes, it’s kind of my own secret place. Look, we sit down over here and we can peer through the grass and watch them, but we are virtually invisible to anyone on the beach or parking area.” She pulled a towel out of her bag and spread it on the ground. Maddy immediately sat down and patted the towel.
I sat down next to her and then looked around, saying, “And we have a perfect view of the sun setting out on the water.”
“That’s why I’ve come here year after year,” she said, moving a bit closer to me.
I figured she might feel a bit chilly so I moved my arm around her and pulled her a bit tighter against me. Glancing down at her face I watched her look up, directly into my eyes and, ever so slightly, tilt her head to the side. Follow her subtle lead, I tilted my head and leaned to her, letting my lips lightly touch hers.
Anticipating a light, friendly kiss, I began to pull my head back when she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to her, her lips pressing hard against mine, her tongue pushing between my lips. Finally realizing her exact intentions, I opened my mouth and then met her tongue with mine. We kissed firmly, deeply for what seemed like forever and yet seemed like just seconds.
Breaking apart I immediately moved my hands to her breasts, gently cupping them as I whispered, “Oh I wanted to touch these for so long.”
She smiled, and I asked, “Did I say that out loud?”
“Yes you did. Here, let me help you,” she replied pulling down the straps to her bathing suit and folding down the top half to expose her breasts. As the support of the bathing fell away, her breasts sagged down onto her stomach, but I quickly took one in each hand and lifted them as I moved my mouth down to them. One by one I ran my tongue in tight little circles around the dark areola as each nipple hardened. Soon, both stood out. They were larger than any other woman I had been with, I’d swear almost the size of dimes. Anyway, I sucked the nipples one at a time while Maddy began running her hand over my crotch.
I was already erect and as long as it had been since I’d been with a woman and as excited as I was now, I didn’t dare let her do much more with her hands or I’d be finished before we got started. Quickly pulling away from her breasts, I pulled her bathing suit down over her hips as she leaned back and lifted her butt off the ground. I quickly pulled the suit down her legs and put it on the edge of a towel.
In the light of the setting sun I looked down at Maddy’s pussy, a pussy I had longed to touch, to taste, to feel, to love for so many years. Moving her hands from my cock, which was just seconds from exploding, I crawled up between her legs and began kissing her thighs. I tried to be patient, I tried to work up to it all, but I couldn’t, instead I ran my tongue down her thigh and the quickly over to her slit.
I could feel my whole body trembling as I pressed my tongue into her. Seeing and feeling her lips open to me sent a chill though my body and I reached up, grabbed her ass and pulled her onto me as I pushed my tongue into her as deeply as I could. The taste of her flooded me as I lapped up her juices. Feeling my cock tingling, I squeezed her ass tight and concentrated, still enjoying her taste, but avoiding a premature orgasm in my pants.
She wiggled her hips a bit as I slipped my tongue out of her pussy and moved upward through her soft lips until I reached her clit. I let the tip of my tongue brush lightly over the tiny nub and I could feel her body tense up. Slowly I increased the pressure my tongue applied to her until I was firmly running circles over her clit. Still cupping her ass, I could feel her muscles tighten as she lifted her hips to press against my face.
Quickly moving my right hand from her ass over to her pussy, I pressed two fingers into her, feeling them slide easily into her wet opening. She immediately moaned feeling my fingers and began to raise and lower her hips more quickly. After a few minutes she cried out, “Oh yes,” and reached down and grabbed my head with her hands. Pulling my face hard onto her pussy, she ground herself on me, wetting my face and fingers with her juices. When she came I pushed a third finger into her and savored the pulsations as her pussy squeezed my fingers again and again.
I had stopped moving my tongue over her clit and simply rested my head on her thigh as she recovered from her climax. As the last of the pulsations inside her subsided I carefully withdrew my fingers. She moaned softly and then said, “I want you inside me.”
“But I…”
“Not your fingers, your cock,” she replied huskily.
I quickly pulled off my shorts and underwear and kneeled in between her legs. She reached down with her right hand and while holding her pussy lips open with her left, she guided me into her opening. Up until that time I had exhibited considerable control, but suddenly feeling her warm softness close over me sent waves of pleasure through my body. Trembling wildly, I pressed my hips forward and pushed my cock to the hilt inside her. It all happened so suddenly, this sensation I had longed for these many years, the feeling of being inside this beautiful woman overwhelmed me and with my second thrust I knew I couldn’t hold off any longer.
I pulled back and then shoved into her as I came, spurting my cum into her pussy as I collapsed on top of her. My cock continued to jump and twitch inside her as I spurted again and again. Feeling a tear run down my cheek, I buried my face into her shoulder until I could get myself under some appearance of control. Here I was, nearly fifty years old, with a woman maybe seventy years old and I was trembling and sobbing like an eighteen year old in the midst of losing his virginity.
After a few moments, when I had calmed myself some, I rose up on my hands to look down at her. She smiled in that glowing way that first attracted me to her. The lines at the corners of her eyes and at her mouth simply added to the incredible beauty of this woman. “I… I… you know I’ve loved you for so many years, ever since those first days we worked together.”
“I loved you too Martin,” she replied, reaching up and running her fingers through my hair.
“No, I mean I truly loved you, I mean I was married to Katherine, but I loved you.”
“And I loved you.”
“But…”
“Martin, you were married, married to my good friend and assistant. Yes, I loved you. I wanted you, but I couldn’t do that to Katherine, to the both of you.”
“But I loved you too.”
“I wondered about that, seems I was right, but that didn’t change things. If anything had happened between us it very well could have ruined Katherine’s life, if not both of ours. As involved as we were in the Beachfront Now movement it all could have come crashing down and where would we have been then?”
“Hell, they still have Earth Day, someone would have done it sooner or later.”
“But we did it sooner, and what we did was good. And later, after I married Charles our influence and his association with Gaylord Nelson helped get Earth Day started. I have to believe our influence, yours, Katherine’s, mine as well as the rest of the workers help convince Charles and Gaylord. Without our encouragement, support and well, our nagging about the environment it may not have happened when it did, it may not have happened the way it needed to happen.”
“You loved Charles.”
“Yes, he had his good points, but it was never like what I felt for you,” Maddy replied.
“Okay, but what about now?”
“Now?”
“Yes now, can’t we try to get together now?”
“Didn’t we just…”
“No, no I mean, I’m not married and Charles died years ago…” I stopped as she held a finger to my mouth.
“Martin, didn’t you know? Katherine and I?”
“You are with Katherine now, you are… are…”
“I am in a lesbian relationship with Katherine, have been for a little over a year. We’d worked together for so long and well, it turns out Katherine pretty much felt the same about me as you did. One reason why she never could stay with a man.”
“It wasn’t that Exxon Valdez thing with me?”
“You know, I think that was simply a convenient excuse, she simply needed to be with a woman. It took some time for her to figure it out, but now she seems happy.”
“But what about this, me, now?”
“Oh Martin, frankly, while I like being with Katherine, sometimes I just need a man. I think it has something to do with the urgency. I mean it is wonderful with Katherine, so soft and loving, but nothing like experiencing you as you first thrust into me, that pure need in your body and then you coming so quickly.”
“I’m sorry about that, it’s been so long.”
“No, no, don’t apologize, you don’t know what you did for this seventy year old woman to know I can still turn a man on so much.”
“Maddy, you are an incredible woman, a incredible, sexy woman,” I said, feeling my cock beginning to harden. It had slipped out of her as we talked, but now it was coming back to life.
“You are quite a man Martin.”
“Do you think we can get back together sometime?”
“Like this?”
I nodded.
“No, I mean Katherine knows how I feel about needing a man, but I couldn’t do this with you again, it’s all too… all too close.”
“But…”
“Look Martin, it’s kind of like that movie, back in the seventies, I still remember it.”
“What movie?”
“‘Against All Odds,’ Jeff Bridges, James Woods, and I forget the woman. Anyway, Woods got the woman and Bridges spoke a line that I still believe to this day. He said, ‘Sometimes wanting is better than having.’ I’ve looked at us that way, looked as us that way for all these years.”
“I don’t know what to say Maddy.”
She reached down and touched my cock saying, “Don’t say anything, let’s just enjoy each other one more time.”
I kneeled and let her take my cock and guide it into her one last time. Our juices had dried a bit while we talked so it took several light pushes before my cock slipped into her pussy, but it was quickly coated with her again and I moved in and out of her easily. This time it wasn’t about urgency, it wasn’t about need or want, it was simply about enjoying the body of someone I loved, someone who loved me.
We moved slowly, savoring the feeling of sliding into her as she savored each time I filled her with my cock. After a few minutes I could feel her grasping me harder and her body tensed. Suddenly she lifted her hips, raising her ass up off the towel as I slid my cock into her. Moaning loudly, she came, wrapping her arms and legs around me.
I paused, feeling her pussy squeezing my cock again and again. As the pulsations subsided, I began moving again, concentrating on feeling her, feeling the warmth, the softness, her wetness as I pushed into her body. Feeling the pleasure surge over me I pushed up on my hands and stared into her eyes.
She stared up at me and watched as my face contorted with the pleasure. I gave myself completely to the sensation of the woman I loved, the woman I loved for nearly thirty years. When I came, it was to such happiness and sadness. Part of me flowed into her, becoming part of her, if only for a few hours. As the pleasure slowly subsided I relaxed down onto her body until my cock shrank and slipped out of her. The happiest few moments in my life slipped away and I felt suddenly so lonely again.
We got up and dressed without talking, we simply watched each other as we prepared to leave, leave the dunes and leave each other. Sure we’d probably see each other again, but never, never like this. We walked down out of the dunes and toward the parking lot. At her car, I took her in my arms and kissed her, holding her tight for a minute or so, then I whispered, “Goodbye Maddy, I love you.”
“I know Martin, I love you too,” she replied as she climbed into her car.
The next day I saw her on TV talking about the beach cleanup and the Earth day events. She seemed so much older than when we walked up into the dunes, the lines in her face more distinct, underneath her arms skin sagged and she seemed a bit wobbly as she spoke. I spent the rest of the day wondering about what she said, that line from the old movie, “Sometimes wanting is better than having.”
Would we have been happy together or would I have failed her as a husband like I did with ex-wives one through three? Well, ex-wife one might have been an exception but I did certainly fail the other two. Was it better to have spent my life wanting her, than to have had her and hurt her? Or if things were different, could we have made it, could we have been truly happy?
Several months later I found I had a voice mail, not the usual call from a creditor or salesman, no, I recognized Katherine’s voice. Rewinding, I turned up the message and learned that Maddy had died. When I returned the call Katherine told me she died of complications from an ongoing bout with cancer. The environment she worked so hard to clean up had ultimately killed her.
I sat with Katherine at the funeral and before I left to head back home I whispered to her, “You know I loved Maddy, I loved her from the day I met her.”
“I know Martin, I did too.” I kissed her on the cheek, took one look back as the winch slowly lowered the casket into the ground and then walked to my rental car. The world was just that much lonelier now.