She rehearsed the fantasy again. This time, she pictured Daniel eating with her. Swimming in the pools and in the ocean. Laughing. Sharing stories. Sharing kisses.
Sharing a bed.
Anna lit a fragrant beeswax candle and placed it on the side of her bubble-filled tub. When had she stopped seeing her body as something lush, desirable, sensuous? She mourned the loss as she stepped into the water and slid under the surface to soak.
The hot water encouraged her to relax. She lifted one leg, drizzled orange blossom-scented bath oil from her ankle to her knee, and rubbed it into her skin and between each toe before kneading at her calf muscles the way the masseuse at the hotel spa had demonstrated. Lowering her foot into the bath water, she lifted the other leg and repeated the movements. Bathing was another ritual that had become more perfunctory than pleasure inducing.
She poured more oil into her right palm and massaged her left arm, starting at her wrist and working up to her shoulder. She ran her thumb up and down her forearm, getting into places that often ached after a long day of cutting and sewing the heavy material needed for boat upholstery. Each finger received equal attention before she circled her palm with her thumb and switched arms.
Her breasts waited. Wide aureole and baby-suckled nipples floated above the surface of the water. She wanted to touch her fifty-year-old body the way a lover might, but there was a bridge she had to cross to get there and she didn’t have the inspiration or the motivation to cross it tonight.
Pouring more oil into one palm, she tilted her hand and let the excess drip into the other. Crossing her arms, hands resting on opposite breasts, she ran her fingers over the underside, into the underarm area, and finished each stroke by dragging her fingers around and over her nipples and pinching.
Watching the self-touch felt voyeuristic. She closed her eyes, followed the memory of Gaia’s honeyed voice, and breathed into sensation. She was trying to love her body. She really was, but the threat of tears played under her breastbone and across her shoulders, lifting her collarbones like bits of driftwood caught in the wake of a boat. Two, maybe three years into widowhood, she’d cried all her tears, the tissue around her heart gone dry.
The cistern must have refilled in celebration of her birthday.
Resting her head on the curved edge of the tub and propping her feet on the tiled surround, she released her arms and sank into the water up to her chin. The vague outline of her torso and legs showed under the thinning layer of bubbles. Everything below decks was capable of sensation—or had been.
After Gary’s death, she practiced benign neglect.
The neglect wasn’t intentional, but grief didn’t come with a handbook or a time card for her to punch as she left each stage behind or even a ticket she could hand over in return for an aspect of her prior life. Somewhere in the months and years that followed Gary’s death, she simply forgot her body was capable—and desirous—of erotic encounters.
Now, she had a best friend committed to outfitting her for the trip to Orgasm City like it was a trek to the Himalayas. She had a how-to manual with beautiful and explicit illustrations, a drawer full of beautiful underthings, a half-dozen sex toys, and a college boyfriend wanting to buy her a few days in Paradise.
And something wasn’t right.
A glimpse of what she was missing glimmered when she paired up with Leo at the workshop. He looked good, he smelled good, his voice made her toes tingle, and he was real. Leaning into his back invited her to indulge in the fantasy of being with a man who would step in, take care of her needs, listen. Which, when she thought about it, was way more than she should have gotten from sitting with a stranger.
The bath cooled. The water drained, pulling the last of her tension through the catch and leaving water droplets to bead the oil-slicked surface of her skin. She rose, patted dry, slipped her arms into a faded nightgown with tiny pearl buttons down the front, and blew out the candle.
Chapter Four
Anna’s Monday morning disposition didn’t match the clear sky and unseasonable warmth of early October. Canadian Thanksgiving was one week away, and her offspring had yet to settle on who was cooking what and where they were gathering. She slid her arms into her plaid wool robe, the one with the frayed cord trim and satin-lined collar that had belonged to her grandfather, and gathered what she needed for an attitude adjustment on the pebbled beach.
Her mood lightened the closer she got to the familiar perch of her favorite rock. High tides, storms, and human scavengers were forever rearranging or carrying off the driftwood littering the shore, but her rock remained ever stalwart and dependable.
Once she had her pillow under her butt and her coffee mug balanced on the flat, lichen-covered surface, she opened Gaia’s book and searched for the chapter on the pelvic floor muscles.
Concluding it would behoove her to locate and activate those muscles as part of her preparation for the trip to Cabo, she closed her eyes to the anatomical drawing and focused on squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing. With any luck and a ton of perseverance, she’d be having breath-enhanced orgasms any day now. Just like Elaine.
And this, she wanted. Whether it was with Daniel in Cabo San Lucas or some other male companion. All she had to do was figure out how to isolate, contract, and release. Isolate, contract, and release.
The steady crunch of shoes on dried leaves alerted her to the approach of company. The skin across her back tingled under the scratchy warmth of her wool robe. Regular visitors to her beach used the path on the other side of her
