A Woman of a Certain Age

Am I a Woman of a Certain Age?

I lie in water as dark and opaque as one of my stories and examine my flushed, sweaty body in the tub. My breasts bob on the top of the water. My thighs, thick and smooth, float submerged almost enough to forget how much they’ve grown since I hit forty.

Somewhere in the expanse of milky flesh between tits and thighs, there’s the memory of a line of dark hair that lied against the palest part of me, between my belly button and the triangle of curls that points between my thighs. There used to be more straight hairs of that “treasure trail” but the rest, maybe a dozen at best even at its thickest, have long since fled. Maybe it’s age, or the constant plucking, waxing, and shaving over the years as I tried to manipulate my hidden features to please people who had never seen me naked, “just in case.”

Just in case what? Just in case the fine hairs on my belly, the same type I played with on dozens of occasions when they appeared on my lovers, might have prevented me from some of the lukewarm sex I had with men more concerned with having been with me than with pleasing me?

I shave my legs and narrow my curly pubic triangle to a stripe of mahogany in honor of that silky, sparse trail that no longer grows on my tummy. Maybe I’ll stop shaving my legs too. I only do it because I’ve grown used to the silky smoothness that I spent countless hours maintaining over a lifetime dedicated to being pleasing to someone, anyone other than myself.

The woman who held me, stroked me to abandon, and left me when I failed to wait, wait, wait just a little longer until she was brave enough to change her circumstances and tell me I was enough, never said a word about my too-short hair and my lack of makeup. She pulled me to the kitchen floor and begged me to make her feel. She told me then that I was like no other.

I didn’t believe her.

She told me again, years later, that after all was said and done, we had a continent of safety between us to cushion the sharp edges of the words, which made sense of all the hurt and abandonment but didn’t bring healing.

“You’re still the one.”

Between us lies hundreds of miles, lovers, children, a handful of careers, and an ocean of trauma. I write all the depraved sex I’ll never get to have and flirt with beautiful women who I assume don’t believe me just like I didn’t believe her.

No happy, just endings, because that’s what happens when you’re a woman and spend a lifetime shaving and waxing and plucking and squeezing your big ass into little-ass clothes to please what is almost sure to be another mediocre lover if you don’t pull your head out of your ass and stop believing what you’ve been told about you by people who don’t even like themselves.

I haul my well-simmered body out of the tub and cool off on the mat. My hands go to the squishy-soft apron; all that remains of my babies’ time in the safest place they will ever be held. My belly is silky and wet from my soak and will not be contained by my small hands. I peruse my reflection, impossible to miss in the mirror that stretches nearly the full width of the bathroom wall.

My hips are too full for commonplace copulation. My pussy’s seen too many things to settle for uninspiring intercourse. I don’t fit into a mold that would please a mediocre lover. My reflection is fierce, angry, accusing, and I deserve it. I let too many people, over too many years, tell me my value to them was equal to my worth.

My body will no longer be contained by such nonsense.