In working order
The next morning arrives humid, the sky pressing down like a damp hand.
Aunt Janey descends the stairs, her white Tai Chi top—different from yesterday's bowls whites, somehow even more aggressively cheerful—swishing with each step.
"Come on, Ellie, we're going to be late for Madam Twok's class. The ladies get very territorial about their spots near the willow tree."
I drive her to the venue. The park smells of cut grass and un-scooped dog droppings.
When we arrive, twenty women in various shades of pastel and white are already arranged in loose formation, moving through their slow-motion choreography like a flock of aging cranes.
I'm invited to join in. I respectfully decline.
I find a bench and try to read on my phone, but my attention fragments as old duckies murmur encouragement to each other.
Someone's hip replacement is discussed in detail.
After twenty minutes, I can't breathe anymore. The air sits too heavy, too still, too full of other people's slow decay.
"I'll be back," I call to Janey, but she's deep in some breathing exercise, eyes closed, oblivious.
I walk.
The park stretches beyond the Tai Chi clearing, past the duck pond with its scum of bread crusts, toward the maintenance area where equipment idles behind a chain-link fence.
My cut-off denim shorts ride high on my thighs—higher than yesterday's, washed now and stiff against my skin. The nipple-hugging T-shirt I grabbed this morning clings in the humidity, my dark hair sticking to my neck.
I find the adult exercise gear near the equipment shed.
The chest press machine. The stationary bike with its seat cracked and peeling.
A rusted elliptical that probably hasn't moved in years.
A man is putting up a sign on the pull-up bar.
He's fifty, maybe fifty-two, with the weathered look of someone who's spent decades in outdoor work.
His maintenance uniform—khaki shorts, polo shirt with the park district logo—fits him like he's grown into it over years. Grey at his temples. Forearms corded with veins.
He's securing an OUT OF ORDER notice with zip ties, his movements deliberate and unhurried.
I stop walking. My sandals crunch on the gravel path, and he looks up.
"Sorry," he says, and his voice has that smoker's rasp.
"Equipment's down. Sprinkler system shorted out the electrical last night."
He gestures at the sign like I might not understand the words.
I look at the sign. I look at him. The humidity presses my shirt to my ribs, and I feel my nipples tighten against the fabric, feel his eyes track the movement without meaning to.
"You look in perfect order, though," he says, and it's a line; it's absolutely a line, but he delivers it with this exhausted self-awareness, like he knows exactly how ridiculous he sounds and doesn't care.
Got to love older guys who grew up before crappy political correctness got too correct.
I step closer.
The gravel shifts under my sandals.
"Well," I say, "what about your personal equipment? Is that in working order?"
His hands still on the zip tie. His jaw tightens, that muscle jumping that men get when they're caught off-guard by something they want.
I watch him calculate—gauge my age, estimate the risk, analyse whether I'm serious or mocking him.
The morning stretches around us, empty, the Tai Chi women too far away to hear anything.
"Miss," he starts, but I can see the shape of him already, the way his khakis hang, the beginning of something stirring.
"There's a work vehicle," I say.
"Behind the shed. I saw it when I walked up."
He stares at me.
The OUT OF ORDER sign flutters in the minimal breeze.
"Tarps in the back," he says finally, and his voice has dropped to that register that means yes, that means fuck yes, that means I'm going to pretend this is your idea so I can pretend I'm not the one risking everything.
I walk past him, close enough to smell the sawdust and sweat on him, close enough to feel the heat coming off his body in the already-hot morning.
I reach the truck and turn. He's right there, closer than I expected, and his hand comes up to my face—not rough, not gentle, just present, his thumb brushing my chin with something like wonder.
"Nineteen," I say.
His mouth comes down on mine.
Its tongues in instant dirty dancing.
Fast staccato tongue slides, swivels and presses.
My rib cage heaving.
I reach for his shorts and find him already hard, straining against the khaki, and I unzip him right there in the morning light with the Tai Chi women barely fifty yards away.
Like hitting the lottery jackpot, he's packing a stiffy above average.
His cock springs out, thick and bouncy, the head already wet.
I drop to my knees on the tarp—and take him into my mouth in one long slide.
"Jesus," he breathes, his hand finding my hair, not guiding, just holding on like he's an apostle about to drown in Galilee.
"Jesus, girl."
Got to love older dudes who must have once gone to Sunday School.
I suck him hard, working my tongue along the vein underneath, tasting the salt of his pre-cum.
His hips stutter forward, involuntary, and I take it, take him, my throat opening around his thickness.
I multitask, yanking my shorts down.
My shaved pussy gets his attention pronto.
He's between my thighs.
His tongue finds me immediately; eager, no finesse, just pure honest licking, and I groan and reach for his cock where it lies heavy against his stomach.
We arrange ourselves, sixty-nine, my mouth finding his taste again as his tongue pushes inside me, as he licks up to my clit and sucks, hard, the way I like it, the way I didn't have to tell him.
My clenching thighs are all the encouragement he needs.
I take him deep, deeper, my nose pressing against his coarse hair, my throat working around him.
He groans into my pussy, the vibration making me clench, and we move like that, sucking and licking.
The tarp sliding, the morning birds loud in the trees nearby.
Mouths snog private bits.
Balls are cradled.
Flapettes are spread and tugged.
Tongue lapping faster than they do chasing dripping ice-cream on a sweltering day.
He hits my pink button with urgent repeated dabs.
Fem-jus trickles from my love nest faster than a slot payout.
"Orrghh!"
Then my gob is full, like someone squeezed the mayonnaise bottle straight to the back of my throat.
Cum dribbles and pearls, damn near everywhere.
"Dave," he says, offering a hand to lift me.
"Ellie," I say.
Whoops! Introductions after the act.
"Towels are in the office."
God, I'm more than half presentable as I shimmy back to the Tai Chi.
Some yin and yang, harmony crap.
Can't beat cock and pussy combined to start your day.
I find my bench and sit.
I don't need to think of anything in the entire world beyond my content private nooky between my thighs.