2010
"I'm 60 years old, and I'm a slut," I said quietly to myself. I leaned back in a favorite armchair in a bedroom of my home in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco. "Katherine O'Riley, you are a slut and have been one since you were about seventeen." I took a sip of wine and contemplated what I had just said.
The wine was exquisite, a ten year old Grand Cru Burgundy (an Aloxe-Corton, Clos du Roi, for those of you with a passion for detail), retrieved from my wine cellar earlier in the day and opened to breathe before I went out to an early dinner with a few friends to celebrate my birthday. I had restrained my drinking at dinner, knowing that I had this stunning bottle of Burgundy awaiting me at home. I let the wine swirl about my mouth as I savored the complex fruit flavors and then the subtle tannins, subdued by ten years of aging, first in French oak and then the bottle. Marvelous, I thought. A great bottle of wine is one of the best birthday presents you can give yourself.
Now there was nothing particularly troubling to me about being sixty years old. Thanks to a regular exercise program, I was still reasonably fit and trim, and according to my most recent physical, none of the customary diseases of aging had set in yet. I was still working full time as the owner and general manager of a small independent publishing company, Dark Secrets Publishing. I learned the trade working for one of the major publishing houses, but I love owning my own shop. We specialize in erotic materials, which are a hot item these days. I get along well with the people who work for me and with the authors and booksellers I deal with. I've even learned to put up with Amazon-a necessary evil in the book publishing business. Unlike others I know who have grown tired of their careers, I still thoroughly enjoy my work. Maybe it's because I publish dirty books, I told myself with a small giggle. I'm told I have a delightful laugh.
I stood, setting my wine glass on a table, and slowly stripped off my clothes. After another sip of wine, I stepped naked before a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Not bad for an old broad, I thought. My 34C breasts, while no longer "perky," still set nicely on my chest without the appalling sag most women my age have. My belly, albeit a bit softer than it had been forty years ago, was still trim and easily defined a waistline above my hips. My hips, always a bit broader than I would have liked and now even a bit broader than they had been, were still tight without the flab and cellulite of old age. I turned quickly, looking over my shoulder to examine my ass. A little rounder than it had been at twenty-five, but still what many men, including some I knew well, would call "a nice ass," with no appreciable sag. I sipped a bit more wine as I appraised my legs. Long enough to give me my overall height of 5'-8" and, thanks to my regular running program, they remained lean and hard. My hair was shoulder length and thick, a glossy raven in its current incarnation. I was determined not to let any gray show. My hair had been through a lot of different colors and styles over the years, but I had to admit, I was never totally satisfied with any of them, especially the mousy brown I had grown up with. Ah well, changing hair colors is a woman's prerogative.
I took another mouthful of the Corton. "Oh my," I said aloud in response to the nuanced flavors of the wine. Then I smiled as I thought of one more item on my list of accomplishments: "Oh, and I still thoroughly enjoy sex," I said aloud. I knew so many women my age who have long ago given up sex. "What fools these mortals be," I quoted, smiling as I sat down, still naked, in an armchair. All in all I thought, given that I had always assumed I would never live this long, getting to sixty is something of an accomplishment. I crossed my legs, continuing to appraise myself in the mirror, while reaching for the bottle on the adjoining table to refill my waning glass. "Yes, Kate (I go by Kate rather than the more formal Katherine. Only my Mother called me Katherine, and then it was usually when I was in trouble), all things considered you're looking pretty damned good."
