I will be 56 next month and I've been a widower for just under two years now. My wife had been ill for five years before she passed away. I loved her and was okay with the fact that my sex life had ended with her illness. It was difficult sometimes though, because at the time I was only 49 and not ready to call it quits, sexually.

Anyway, to make a long story short, my wife of 30 years passed away and I was left alone to fend for myself. Over the years my wife and I hadn't gone out of our way to make new friends or to maintain friendships from our youth so by the time my wife died I had no one I could call close. Only business acquaintances.

I was never really a lady's man and once my wife was gone I just seemed to shy away from everyone once the workday was done. I had a house to take care of and that's about all I did other than work. Oh! I did read lots of sex stories on the Internet, mainly at Kristen's collection. (Which I'd been doing since my sex life came to an end.)

Then one day I was out in the front yard on my hands and knees weeding my lawn, when this pretty Chicano girl wearing one of the paper-carrier bags, (you know, one of those companies that pay people to go around and stick advertisements on door knobs) came up to me to hand me the ad.

She looked down at me and smiled saying something about how nice my yard looked. I responded with a mumbled rely about when you had nothing better to do, you could make even a gravel pit look nice.

She laughed at that statement and then asked if I were married. I stopped digging at the weeds and sat back to look up at this teenage girl. She looked back at me with confident dark eyes and a smile on her lovely face

Momentarily, I wondered what it would be like to make love to this pretty girl. I know that sounds perverted, a 55, almost 56 year old man thinking about bonking a fresh young girl, but keep in mind that I hand had sex in years and it was only a passing urge.

But then it happened.

I must have snapped, maybe it was reading all those erotic stories on the Internet, or maybe it was the fact that this pretty young woman looked... "Interested" in me. Whatever it was I thought a thought that I would have never thought under normal circumstances. I asked, "So, how much does it pay for you to go around the neighborhood handing out those advertisements?"

"They pay us $25 a day and tell us that if we don't hand out all the ads they'll find out and not pay us."

I could see a guy walking down the other side of the street with the same type paper-carrier sack slung over his head. He looked like a Chicano too. I wondered if they were related. I don't know why I did it but I felt I had to my next ask my question quickly before this guy interrupted the moment.

So I asked, "What if you could make $100 a day for say two hours of work?"

"Cheez man! That would be so fine," she said, enthusiastically. Then with a thoughtful look in her eyes she came back with that old joke we've all heard before, "So who would I have to kill mister?"

We both smiled, but my heart was in my throat as I said, "No murder required. What I'd want from you is sex." To make it perfectly clear I went on to say, "I'll pay you $100 if you would have sex with me."

Even today many months later I still don't know how I worked up the nerve to ask that question. All the alternative negative possibilities that could have taken place have since run though my mind. But back then I was attracted to her and needed some sort of human contact and, well, I just didn't think.

I held my breath waiting for her response. In my day (when I was her age) if some old man had asked a young woman a question like that she would have most certainly have responded negatively, but what with all the moral decay that has taken place in this country over the past 30 years I didn't know what to expect.

I guess I expected her to ridicule me or something, but then she answered with an unsure tone of voice, "I'm not sure. I can make $25 every day doing this, but if I mess up today they won't hire me back..." her voice trailed off.

I was in shock. I know that I'd asked the question, but deep down I really didn't expect her to consider it. I was even more determined, now I had a real glimmer of hope. "I'll tell you what. I'll hire you every other day to come her and make love to me. Let's say, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That'd be $300 a week, $1200 a month. That's a lot more than you'd make handing out advertisements."

Just as the last word was out of my mouth the Chicano guy walked up to us. He and the girl exchanged a few words in Spanish and then the girl waved him off and the guy shot a hostile look at me and trudged off.

My new acquaintance turned back to me and said, "That's Jorge, he's my boyfriend. I told him that I might have a job here and for him to continue on and that I'd meet up with him later."

"So does that mean we have a deal?" I asked, feeling stirrings in the pit of my stomach that I hadn't felt in years. (With the power of hide-sight, I now know that feeling was anticipation.)