by Bill Noble

When just the sliver of a moon was climbing through the oaks, Beth came home with a story to tell. She shed her thick crocheted sweater, slipped out of the old flowered dress, and draped her clothes helter-skelter over the bedside chair. She slid under the covers, pale as a wraith, to breathe a single word.

"Tom."

Tom turned his face toward the slanting moonlight with an affectionate murmur. He kissed her papery fingers and withered cheek.

"Tom." She brushed his temple with her cool lips.

"Is everything all right?" He opened his eyes suddenly.

"Oh, yes," she whispered, "oh, yes."

She kissed his eyes shut again and pressed herself against his frailness. She slipped a hand over his belly to cup the bony crest of his hip. "I came down the canyon from my evening walk. It's such a warm night. I came down by Jason's. I...I watched Jason and Bianca make love. I sat on the hill for a long time, watching them."

"...the grandchildren?" His eyes fluttered open again.

"The curtains were open. I came down through the woods past their house. I could see candles burning, and then Bianca walked in front of the window, just shining. You know, her breasts were so lovely in the candle glow, and Jason caught her up from behind and kissed her."

"Elizabeth," he said. He always called her that when he disapproved of something. She laid a finger across his lips to shush him.

"Thomas," she teased. "They were beautiful, and it stirred me, so I watched. At my age I can watch if I want." He heard the determination in her voice, and knew better than to argue.

She kissed along his collarbone, then let her mouth rest for a while over the pulse at the side of his neck. He sighed and she began to stroke his chest and belly, tenderly and slowly. "We have such a sturdy grandson," she said. "He's such a wonderful father and such a dear of a husband. I knew right off the two of them would make a good pair." She traced fingertip circles around Tom's nipples until he sighed again and shifted closer against her. "I have to say, when he picked her up like that -- oh, the way she looked at him after they kissed, Tom! But when he stood there with her in his arms like that, so strong and easy, and her perfect round bottom -- well, I have to admit, I blushed a little. I almost looked away when his penis was bobbing around like that, right under her..."

"Elizabeth," he said again, but she bent forward and put her lips over his nipple. Then she raised her head to look him in the eye. She gave him a peculiar little twinkle, kissed him on the nose, and disappeared under the covers. He sighed. "Beth, it must be terribly late. We need to sleep."

"Can you hear me all right down here?"

"Yes, Beth, but..."

"Then just listen. I want to tell you about it."

"Beth, I don't think..."

She began to brush her cheek and lips gently against his penis. "Well he just stood there with her in his arms, right beside the bed. They kissed a bunch more -- oh, for a long time -- and then he began to lick her breast -- you know, great, long strokes with the whole flat of his tongue, just the way I used to like you to lick my breasts. And his penis jumped every time he licked her. You know, it's curved up as if it was trying to look around, just like yours. But, oh, Tom, she has the loveliest breasts. Were mine ever so beautiful, do you think, when I was twenty-eight?"

He began to stroke her back with his fingertips. He reached a hand to cradle the furrowed scar on her chest. A tear trailed down his cheek onto the pillow.

"Well, Bianca reached down and grabbed hold of Jason and started to stroke him. Like this." She began a slow up-and-down with Tom's still-sleeping penis. "You should have seen the way his legs locked up and his butt clenched! Your grandson's a real stallion, Tom Maynard. He takes after his grampa.

"Anyhow, Jason dumped her right on the bed. Then he threw her legs up over those big Maynard shoulders of his and just buried his face in her. She made the most amazing noise -- I wouldn't know what to call it. Right through those double-paned windows and all."

"Beth, really..."

"Well, really, your old proper self! You remember the things we used to do? Remember the time you took me skinny-dipping way up Slater Brook, and by the time we were through we could only find enough clothes lying around for one of us to get home with? I had to go in your pants and fetch you back another pair. Or the time we spent the weekend at the Brenners' and never got up till noon -- oh, I'm sure we must have been forty then -- and Dewey and Jill blushed all the way through lunch, and hardly spoke? Oh, Tom, we were a pair, weren't we?" She slipped her lips over the head of his penis and began to waltz little circles with her tongue. After a few minutes of silence, she took her mouth away to ask, "Does this still feel as good as you always used to tell me it did?"

"You never would take no for an answer, would you?" Tom laughed. A muffled chuckle came back from under the covers, and for some reason it was the chuckle that seemed to set him stiffening. He was torn between surprise and a sudden onset of delight.

Beth began to slurp and suck, waggling her face, clowning over him. Another laugh welled up, and he felt Beth's stomach begin to shake in silent accompaniment. He grew fully erect.

Beth wet her hands and stroked him vigorously. "Should I tell you what Bianca's climax was like?" He started to say something, but she continued, "It didn't take her long. Tom Maynard, you're as hard as a prize salami. I do believe you're enjoying this!

"Anyhow, she just kept making those noises, but she started to shake, bouncing around on the bed. Jason had to wrap his arms round both her legs to hold her in place. I was afraid the poor boy was going to break a tooth trying to keep his mouth on her!" Tom reached between Beth's legs to pet her. She squealed a girlish little squeal and then lifted one leg to straddle him. He caught her rich humusy smell and felt the fullness and heat of her engorgement. She stroked him hard and fast, then slowed to an almost painful delicacy. He felt the warmth of her lips on him again for a moment before she reverted to full hard stroking with her hands.

"Bianca left big red welts all down his back. And she threw her head back so far I was afraid she was going to break her neck. I'm surprised you didn't hear the commotion all the way over here. Her shaking just went on and on and on. You should have seen the way Jason was thrusting against the edge of the bed -- but he never took his mouth off her. Shall I tell you what happened next, what Jason did?"

"Wait, Beth, wait."

"You want me to stop?" She was prepared to be outraged.

"No, no. Mercy, just for a minute. I want to do something." He sat up on the edge of the bed, trying to catch his breath. Beth had emerged from the covers and was watching him quizzically. After a moment he turned on the little bedside lamp and hobbled to the dresser. He rummaged through the bottom drawer and returned to the bed.

"What have you got, you mischievous man?"

Deadpan, he handed her a tube of lubricant. She grinned up at him.

"Tom Maynard, I believe I've had an effect on you! But what are you hiding behind your back?"

He laid a faded photograph on the sheets. She took him in her hand and stroked him toward hardness again, turning to look at the picture. "Tom! I didn't know you kept these!" The photo showed two strong young bodies coupling on a lawn next to a stately bed of iris. The picture was slightly askew. The tops of the couple's heads were cut off. "Oh, Tom! Do you remember how the camera kept falling down every time the shutter went off? And how hard it was to run back around and try to get inside me again before the thing fired? Oh, I didn't know you still had these! Do you remember," she laughed, "we had to find an ad in some sleazy magazine and mail the film all the way to Chicago?"

"You're a beautiful woman, Elizabeth Ann Maynard." He laid her down on the covers. He put a pillow on the floor to cushion his stiff knees and knelt between her legs. "It's my turn."

She held the picture, gazing alternately at it and at the disheveled snowy hair and familiar old head that pleasured her. She couldn't name the reason for the tears they brought. She tried to continue the story of Jason and Bianca, to give Tom something of the wonderful images that moved in her mind, of the run of the muscles in Jason's haunches and down the length of his candlelit back, but the words trailed away unresolved. Her sounds, when she came to them, long after words had failed, told a story they both seemed to know well.

He moistened her with great tenderness, inside and out, and she lubricated him and brought him quickly to erection again, smiling. He entered her with a long, moaning exhalation while she held his face between her hands like an unexpected prize. They kissed in lazy delirium, first one moving, and then the other. They anticipated one another's pleasure, knew when to give respite, when to take up the rhythm again. When he climaxed, her hands clutched his buttocks, pulling him deep into her. He held himself carefully inside long after they were through.

After a time, Tom turned out the lamp. She helped him lie beside her, side by side as the moon receded across the bedroom floor. Long after it had vanished they turned and moved into one another's arms, breath and pulse flowing together, one indistinguishable music in the deepening night.