Okay. I developed an abscess near my anus. Pretty common, I learned, but naturally nobody really talks about it. Anyway, I had surgery and it required some after surgery observation.

It was just as it says: ‘observation’. I never thought I’d get tired of strange women asking me to roll over so they could see my ass hole. Okay, I didn’t. Get tired of it, that is.

After a few days of mostly lying in a bed, I was bored with TV, reading, and internet surfing. Then one morning, a nurse came in and said it was time for a shower.

As it was, I had to make sure I kept the incision clean. The first time I ‘went’ after surgery, I called the nurse to assure I’d gotten it clean enough. She inspected my butt and said it seemed pretty clean. This was the same nurse telling me it was my turn in the shower.

“Oh,” I said, “If you get me a towel, I’ll go tend to that right now.”

“Well, that’s not the way it works here. I’m required to stay and make sure you are safe.” She sounded like she was tired. I figured she’d probably recited the same regulation quite a few times before.

By then though, I was used being basically naked in front of people I didn’t know. After the surgery, they put me in some gauzy kind of briefs that hid nothing yet contained the drainage from the incision. By the third day, the temperature in my room made the regular hospital gown too warm to keep it tied closed. Untying the neck straps and letting it flop down helped, but eventually, I just took it off and used the sheet for a show of some modesty.

So it didn’t bother me that this nurse, Josie, would have to sit and watch me shower. To tell the truth, it kind of turned me on. I wasn’t sure how safety capable she’d be though, unless she got in with me. I smiled when I had that thought.

I’m nearly 70. Josie looked like, maybe forty-something, but I’m no judge. Whatever her age, she was attractive. Curly, short red-haired and freckle-faced, she also had freckles on her arms and hands. The top of her head came to my chin, but her curvy, figure contrasted with my own wiry frame.

I’m old enough that all the store clerks and even some of the nurses called me ‘honey’ or just ‘hon’ for short. To me it made it clear they didn’t consider me any kind of threat or ‘dating material’. So I loosened my hold on the reins of my mouth. Sometimes a thought occurred to me which I’d never have spoken when I was younger. Some I just blurted out and some I wisely kept to myself.

So when Josie told me she’d have to watch me shower, I suggested she strip off her scrubs and join me. She laughed and acquired a nice bright blush.

“Honey, the way things are here, their rules don’t forbid it. Most of you guys on this floor have some equilibrium problems. So I take a shower with you if you seem too unsteady in my judgment. It’s only logical that if I’m in there with you it’s the only way I can help with your balance.”

“That’s the way it seems to me, too,” I agreed with a smile. I actually do have equilibrium problems (I walk with a cane), so I got painfully to my feet and she followed me to the shower my room held. My post-surgery ‘panties’ and the non-skid socks discarded, I waited outside the large shower which took up the entire end of the bathroom. Josie pulled the curtain across then leaned in to start the water and adjust the temperature.

Standing in front of her, I noticed the way her top gapped open, pressed outward by her grapefruit sized freckled tits, knowing I’d be seeing them in person in a few minutes. My old dick twitched – a surprise to me because it didn’t happen too much any longer. I’d been on medications for a few years by then that tended to sap my erections. Now I’d also been married by then to my current wife for fourteen years. As a result of its loss our previously fairly active sex life had become virtually nonexistent.

The last couple of times we tried to make love, my stiffness had flagged and that was as far as it went. That didn’t mean I didn’t still have frequent thoughts about sex, however. And oral sex was still enjoyable, though infrequent.

I was still able to flog myself to an orgasm, but the stiffness had been replaced by an expansion in thickness, the length only a couple of inches or so more than it was when my cock was soft ... So the thoughts and sight of Josie’s freckled breasts before me caused what I still get as an erection -- a ghost of its former self.

She glanced at it, then at my face. All I could do was smile sheepishly. She realized what I’d been peeking at (and saw its result) and blushed again, but she wasn’t fast enough to hide her smile as she turned her back to me to remove her scrubs. She blushed again and got down to her bra and a pair of nice bikini panties.

She raised her gaze to my eyes as she told me, “Supposedly, for these showers we’re supposed to leave our undies on. But would you mind if I don’t? I didn’t bring extras today and I probably shouldn’t go commando the rest of the day.” My erection responded a bit more than it has for a while.

“Josie, you can see how much I’d mind,” I said, indicating my cock. She laughed and unclipped her bra, then turned her back to me to shimmy out of the strings of the panties. She had to know what she showed me as she turned again to set the undies on the same low chair as her scrubs.

The chair was short enough to require her to bend forward quite a bit, exposing her own butt and the tender orifice right below it to me (Fair’s fair, I thought). She could have just dropped them on the chair, but she took the time to fold them neatly. I was in wonder at the number of freckles on her body. They covered her from head to toe in constellations of light brown. Her slit was bare, but the mound was covered by a trimmed red patch of curls that almost matched those on her head.

She glanced shyly as she faced me again. She knew what I’d seen, all right. “Okay, mister, about face,” she ordered. I had to suppress a smile when she rested her hands on my hips as I turned and stepped over the low lip that kept the place from flooding when somebody was showering. She was close behind me and we entered the steamy shower.

She had me sit on the backless plastic ‘chair’ that she’d positioned under the warm spray. Then she reached to the wall, where there was a liquid shampoo/body soap dispenser. She squeezed a puddle onto her hand. Watching her moving around was a sight I’ll always remember – this whole situation was bizarrely thrilling and unforgettable. Weird or not, I was enjoying every minute.

“Close your eyes, now. I’m gonna wash your hair.” She grabbed the spray hose and turned the knob that directed the water to it instead of the fixed overhead one, the redirected spray arcing toward my knees. She went behind me and slowly got my head wet. She asked me to hold the sprayer while she used the soap to lather me up. Her fingers felt wonderful, scratching and massaging my scalp and I told her so.