Like most older men, I would have given anything to have known then what I know now. Nature plays a dirty trick on us men though: by the time we learn what we need to know about life, sex for example, we are almost too old and physically limited to do a lot about it. If we try to do something about it - to somehow recreate our lives and be sexual beings again - we're labeled 'dirty, old man.' We are supposed to simply give up, rest in our rocking chairs and reminisce. That is grossly unfair.

For last few years, from fifty-five to sixty, I had ached to amend my life and in some way correct those errors of omission, more than commission, I so willingly committed for so many years. For all my blather about being liberated, I had been at heart a prude. Sex was good for me only if was 'nasty.' Power was the game, not love or even real pleasure, so I did a lot of damage to myself as well as others oh how and it hurt to remember it!

What happened to me shortly after my sixty-first birthday, with a very young woman, brought me face to face with my own failings and fears.

After several bad marriages, I was finally married for over thirty years to the same woman and when she died, I was left alone, no longer young or eligible. Society, economics, and my own earlier lack of sense, obliged me to live with my relatives. I wasn't happy about it and I don't think they were either. We got along but I was not given to aging gracefully. Every time I wanted to go or to do, I ran head on into those ugly attitudes that insist a man of my age isn't supposed to do this or that, or go here or there, or even feel a certain way. After a couple of years of playing "grandfather," for my stepdaughter and her brainless, macho husband, I was a grouchy as a bear with a sore paw. I felt that their whole attitude toward me was one of not-quite-sincere deference and patronizing patience.

Granted, I couldn't drink most men under the table - not that I ever wanted to - nor could I do physical labor all day long; nor could I hold my own in some silly brawl; nor could I get a decent job with any interesting responsibility. Sadly, if I had a woman, I certainly could not make love to her oftener than once every two weeks.

I dated, however, once in a while, usually some elderly widow with an attitude as patronizing as my step-daughter. I usually ended the so-called date by chasing the old biddy hen off with some fairly harsh words. The idea that 'you're too old for that sort of thing, ' provoked me beyond belief! Perhaps it would have resolved things had I found a woman who looked at life and loving instead of death, infirmity and dissolution as her lot in life. The other attitude I encountered had to do with deceased spouses. While I have a deep respect for any long standing union between a man and a woman, I had no desire to be a pinch hitter for some bozo who achieved sainthood merely because he had died.

So there I was, beginning to think that perhaps I was wrong, that maybe it was proper that a man my age should shut down his ambition and his sexual feelings and become a walking vegetable. Then along came Arlette.

My step-son and his wife divorced and as the courts often do, they awarded custody to the ex-wife without a close look at her lifestyle, her moral character or her ability to rear children. Suzie was a scatter-brained, artificial, dissimilating little snot, to phrase it as kindly as possible. She leached off of men using what amounted to false advertising. She would wear revealing clothes, lots of makeup and move in a way that suggested dim bedrooms and torrid nights. She was however a cold, calculating mercenary woman with very little of that elusive quality they term 'class.'. The average prostitute is far more honest and safer to associate with.

Suzie and Mark had a fourteen-year-old daughter I had not seen for most of her life. I'd seen her as a baby of course, but because of geographical separation I never really got to know her. Neither my late wife nor I cared much for Suzie so we didn't visit often I'm sorry to admit. When my step-son finally realized just how the girl was being raised, he finally did something about it and took custody. His working schedule however kept him hopping from city to city, and with no wife or live-in lady, the girl was too often on her own. So my step-daughter, Molly, volunteered to take the kid on a part time basis. That's when I met Arlette.

At fourteen, Arlette was lovely. She was just past that coltish, giggly stage and about to make the consequential step into biological womanhood. She was tall for her age - five-foot-six - blonde, blue eyed, with long limbs and a healthy, clear complexion, somehow avoiding the 'zits' some kids area cursed with at that age. When she wasn't self conscious about it, she moved with a natural grace that was awesome. Most of the time however, she went about with her eyes downcast, tiptoeing around, acting like a dog that's been kicked a few times too often. She hadn't grown sly yet like her mother, but she was headed that way. She would behave in a defiant way now and again, but always over small, incidental things that gained her very minor victories. She told stupid lies too, as if the truth wasn't good enough or interesting enough for anyone to hear. She put on a fairly good facade however, sometimes acting as if she really didn't care, but that tactic didn't work well either. She was a well trained 'victim' just waiting for some victimizer to come along. It made me furious to see it.

Like most of her peers though, she was discovering boys - that's BOYS! in upper case letters that is. Boys however are jerks. They seem to be either wimps or super-macho little asses. It isn't their fault altogether; it's they way we raise them, frustrating any genuine maleness in them and giving them exaggerated aggressive attitudes and mock instruments of violence to play with. In defense, many young girls develop manipulative habits, using their sexual attraction to con boys with pseudo sex or a establishing a sham of stupidity to get what they need from them. It's a pretty sorry situation.

Arlette and I got along fairly well however and I think that was because she saw me as a grandfather image more than a viable male person. The kid had problems though and I would have bundled her off to a good therapist, post haste if I'd had my way.

I noticed how she was with the young guys who eventually began to show up at the door and I was not a happy camper about what I was seeing. She simpered and giggled and acted stupid, but when the boys were not around, she showed promise of real intelligence. She had been hammered down by her parents though, told she was stupid and generally shoved into the position of second fiddle to her slightly older sister so she of course acted stupid and awkward and self-loathing. I hated to see that, so I found the opportunity to take a couple of long walks with her and get to know her better. She indulged me - the old grandnpa - and went along with me. I tried to listen to her, to find out what she really felt, but like some others, at first she tended to patronize me. I put up with that because I needed to know whether or not she could realize the potential I saw in her.

When she got into a beef with her older sister on the telephone about some cherished item older sister had given away, I saw the anguish and awful self-doubt the kid was saddled with and I wanted to rip into the sister like the old curmudgeon I'm supposed to be. She caved in to her mom and sister, giving up on what she wanted, but the rage and heartache on her face was so very plain to see that I hurt for her. That sort of bullying is all too familiar to me! On impulse, I suddenly hugged her and said, "Tell 'em to go to hell, kid." Then I left the room, her staring after me with a dumbfounded expression on her face.

A couple of days later, after one of my compulsory evenings with one of those sour faced widows, I went on a walk again with Arlette. She was still seething inwardly about the recent ripoff so when I mentioned it, she flared up for just a moment. Her eyes flashed for a second and her righteous indignation showed, then she quickly withdrew into her 'passive kid' mode. That momentary flare of self-awareness was beautiful to see. She just might be, I thought, a real person and a glorious woman if she could shed the apathy and somehow maintain that spark of character. Half way around the open field a mile or so from the house, we came to a log and, pretending weariness, I asked her to sit with me. I was quiet so long that she asked if I were all right.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm okay. I just have a lot on my mind really."

Out of politeness, she asked, "What's the matter?"

"I'm just fed up with being jerked around," I said candidly. "I get pushed into going out with some women I wouldn't escort to a dog fight because your aunt thinks I need the exercise."

Arlette laughed - almost. "She just wants you to be active."

"Active? How active can I be around some old hen who only wants to find out how much dough I have in the bank? I don't really enjoy about hearing what a paragon of manhood her late husband was either."

"Well," she said, "you don't have to go out if you don't want to."

I looked at her without saying anything for a few seconds.

"I suppose," I said after a bit. "But I do like to go out. The trouble is, I'd rather go out, do my own thing and find my own kind of woman rather than have a planned evening with somebody's female relative who is being shoved at me just so they can get rid of her."

Arlette gazed at me, frowning for a moment. "You still want to really date?"

"Oh, you bet I do!" I put on a grin. "Did you think that I didn't care for girls anymore?"

She looked surprised, as I knew she would. "You do?"

"Sure," I nodded easily. "That doesn't change at any age."

I could see the burning question churning around inside her blonde head and I waited for it to come out. But it didn't so I pushed the question.

"Does that surprise you?" I asked her. I wasn't trying to raise the matter of sex but just attempting to get her to speak her mind.

She shrugged, looking away. "I guess so."

"Well," I said casually as I could, "I think anyone has the right to live their own life too, more or less."

She kept looking away and I was afraid that I was boring her. So I offered,

"Don't you want to run your own life too?"

She looked back, an instant's anger in her eyes. "Nobody can just do what they want to."

"Oh? And why not?"

She made an impatient gesture with her hands. "Because we have to live with other people, that's why. Kids have to... learn to get along with people."

"Uh-huh. Which people?"

She looked startled. "Any people," she said, somewhat impatiently.

"That can get to be emotionally expensive. If you try to live your life to please everybody," I said slowly, "then you don't have any life at all, Arlette. All you have is someone else's life to lead. And since people often have different opinions, you can end up with no real opinion of your own."

She gazed at me intently, curiously, and I think I saw the beginning of thought behind the annoyance in her expression. She didn't say anything so I plunged on.

"You know," I mused aloud, "being a bit elderly is a lot like being very young again. Everybody seems to think that you haven't any brains at all and that they have to do everything for you. Like fix you up with boring old ladies." I chuckled. "But all of us have a sense of what is right and what is not right for us, at any age."

"Maybe you do," she said in a grim tone, "but I don't. I don't know anything."

I sat up straight and stared at her, making a scowl. "Oh yeah? Says who?"

She shifted nervously. "I'm a kid."

"Oh really? A few years ago you would have been considered a woman. Even at that, it's likely someone would have told you just who you would marry and what your life would be. But happily, you have a say in the matter these days."

"Oh, sure," she said sarcastically. "I can do whatever I want to."

"Nobody can do exactly whatever they want to unless they live on a desert island, and as the man said, no one is an island. However," I went on quickly, "we have sovereignty."

"Sov - what?"

"Sovereignty," I repeated.

Then I told her a fairy tale I'm fairly sure she hadn't heard. It's the one about the prince who married the very ugly woman. She could be beautiful in the day or at night, but not both. When she wasn't beautiful, she was the most homely woman in the kingdom. She told the prince and asked him which way he preferred, having her lovely by day or by night. After a lot of thought, and some good advice from the neighborhood Wise Woman, the prince gave his bride the choice. By giving her that option, the prince broke the evil spell and the woman could be herself all the time. Of course she was beautiful prior to the spell, so that was how she appeared all the time.

When I had finished the tale, Arlette looked at me with a strange, appraising kind of expression on her features. "Why didn't she just be one way or the other? She was pretty some of the time anyway."

"Because it wasn't the way she really was. Someone else forced her to choose one way or the other. They didn't let her decide for herself."

"She was a princess, but how could any ordinary person be beautiful all the time?"

"No one really is," I said carefully. "Most of us are part beautiful and part ugly, part dumb and part smart. But whichever way we are, it's our personal decision to be that way, not someone else's decision. You see? In other words, the princess was the victim of someone else's manipulation until the prince came along and, as her husband, put an end to it by giving her sovereignty."

"I'm not ugly," she said suddenly.

"No," I said, "you're very pretty. You are also pretty bright."

She shook her head quickly. "No, I'm not. I make mistakes."

"That's how we all learn. Just because you make a mistake doesn't mean that you are a mistake. And everybody makes errors from time to time."

Her face twisted for a moment and tear started in her eyes. "I wish I didn't make mistakes."

"Hell," I said "then you'd never, ever learn anything."

"Oh, that sounds okay, but I make too many goofs. I just can't help it." She looked away, hiding her tears.

"Bullshit," I said evenly.

Her head whipped around and she stared at me, slightly shocked.

"You cussed," she wondered.

"I do that when something pisses me off too much."

"I guess you can get away with that at your age."

"At any age, Arlette. I was a juvenile delinquent and now I play the role of curmudgeon. Just like you play the role of a goof up." That was an exaggeration of course.

"Maybe I should be a juvenile delinquent," she laughed bitterly.

"Okay, but if you do, be smart about it. Go ahead and behave like a little lady most of the time, but for Pete's sake, don't buy the crap about having to be bad or ugly because someone says you have to be one or the other. You act according to how you see yourself, and if you see yourself as stupid, or ugly, or evil, then that's how you behave. You don't have a prince yet, so give yourself the right to choose who you are. Be a good parent to yourself if you have to."

"Sovereignty," she said slowly.

"Right!"

I thought I had it all worked out. I'd straighten the kid out and score one for the Gipper as far as her mental health and self-esteem was concerned. But she had her own way of expressing what she really felt. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

"Ho," I grunted. "I should put that in my memory book. But don't go around kissing men just to be polite." I shouldn't have said that.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I just did it because you were being nice to me."

I grabbed her hands. "No, it's okay. You just startled me, that's all." I paused. "I was being cynical because I've become that way lately. I guess I miss being kissed by a pretty woman and I'm bitter about it."

Arlette stared at me. "But you've kissed a lot of pretty girls, I'm sure."

"Oh sure. And I still like it. It's been a long, long time though - too darned long. Like I said," I added thoughtlessly, "everyone seems to think that because I'm older I don't have any feelings about... men and women and all of that."

"You do?"

"Oh for sure I do!" I exclaimed. "I'm not dead yet."

She managed a small laugh. "That's true. But... when you get older, don't you sort of lose, uh, sort of get over that?"

In defense of us elders, I said, "No, you don't. You slow down but the same feelings you had at twenty and thirty are still inside of you, even if the body has aged some."

I saw the next question in her eyes, so I added, "And, yes, older people can still make love. It takes longer, but the result is still the same. The difference is that you don't make babies. You never get over wanting love - physically."

Her mouth dropped open. "You mean that older people do it?"

I nodded, too annoyed to even look straight at her.

"Oh my gosh!" she breathed. "That's hard to imagine."

"Why?" I asked her, a bit sharply.

"Because... because they're older."

"Physically," I admitted. "The need for physical closeness is still a part of being human. If you give up on that, then by God, you're really finished with life."

She touched my hand. "Did you and grandma... "

I nodded. "Of course. The only limit, besides slower reaction time, is how you feel about each other and your basic attitude toward loving."

She shook her head slowly, thinking. "And you both still liked it?"

Again, I nodded. "It changes, naturally, but with a whole lifetime of experience behind you, you have a great deal of knowledge and feeling to draw from."

Arlette sat silently, obviously trying to sort all of that out in her mind. Somehow we had sidetracked from the subject of her feelings and latched onto the topic of mine.

"I'd better be getting back," she said, standing. "Thanks for the story about the ugly princess though. I think you were trying to make me feel better."

As I stood, I said, "That was it. Think about it. Don't let anyone - and I mean anyone - determine how you regard yourself. We have a mind from the age of seven, but so often we allow someone with less intelligence, and less character as well, to do our thinking for us."

"I bet no one did your thinking for you."

"They did, I'm sorry to say. I messed up a lot of my life because of someone else's bull being fed to me. I was pretty old before I realized I had a mind and feelings of my own."

She took my hand and we walked for some time holding hands. At the time, I didn't think much about walking and holding hands with a girl, I was just concerned about getting my message across to her. That's the way it's always been with me, unfortunately. I was usually on the prowl, thinking sexy and more often than not I overlooked the possibility of a good relationship right under my nose.

She was half child, half woman, seething with all the health and hormones a teenager has to burn. Right then I should have called whoa, but I still felt that my age - for all I resented it - insulated me from any romantic involvement. I was woefully wrong. I really tried to convince myself that my reaction to that hasty kiss was only sentiment, but it wasn't.

We had several walks and talks and after a time I began to sense that she wasn't merely humoring a lonely old man. Our discussions covered some pretty important subjects such as religion, politics and family relationships. For a long time she seemed to play yes man to me. I had just about given up on seeing her peek out of her shell and show some independence when she firmly disagreed with me. I concealed my delight and called her to question.

"We have a natural, God given right to be who and what we are," I pontificated.

"If God is so good, as you say," she said "then why do bad things always seem to happen to good folks and vise versa?"

"God doesn't go diddling around in human affairs," I told her. "Besides, we make our own lives."

"Okay then, why do other people influence us so much? A kid gets ordered around by her parents and if they're wrong then the kid gets messed up."

"That's life," I hedged. "We still have to make decisions."

"No we don't," she said with feeling. "A kid doesn't have any say at all. Supposing a kid knows something and the parents won't listen and then there's a problem?"

I had to collect my thoughts. "You have a point. Maybe parents should respect their kids enough to really listen to them."

She nodded with satisfaction. "But they don't. Like the kid I saw in a movie last week: he knew the monsters were coming but his father wouldn't listen so his parents got ate by the monsters."

I had to chuckle. "Served 'em right, didn't it?"

She stopped. "I'm serious," she said, hands on her hips and almost glaring at me. "Even I'm not always right!"

That was what I'd been dying to hear. I grinned at her. "You got it, kid."

"Oh sure," she snorted, walking again. "So what good does it do to be right when you're a frigging kid? Kids are supposed to mind their parents no matter what."

That was the first time I'd ever heard her say a word like that and I was set back a bit. I saw her watching me from the corner of her eye, gauging my reaction to the hard word. I gave a mental shrug about it and tried to respond to her tough question.