They are undressing in haste. Heavy breathing ensues. He removes her blouse, her bra, her shoes, her pantyhose, her panties -- every woman should strive never to have to undress herself, after all -- but when his hand reaches for the button on the waistband of her skirt, she pushes it away.
"The skirt stays," she whispers in his ear.
Pierce stops kissing her for a moment, pulling his face back to give her a quizzical look.
"My cesarean-scar tummy," the mother of two murmurs, apologetically, shaking her head.
"It's better that you don't see."
Time to cue another expert: "Midlife women worry about the bags and sags, and they think that their lovers are going to lose interest in them as soon as they remove their push-up bras and their breasts sag. That is so not true," observes Joan Price, a 65-year-old author in California who wrote Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty.
"A man is attracted to you because he is attracted to you, not the shape of your breasts, and chances are he will be happy to see breasts again, anyway," she adds.
Well, maybe Pierce has seen a few sets. Who knows? It doesn't really matter because he is a gentleman. So, eventually -- two months into their sexual relationship -- Meryl ditches the skirt during intercourse.
"You are beautiful in every way," coos our smooth man.
He may have worries of his own, of course, despite his suave swagger. You know the kind I mean. Which is where Keith Jarvi, a urologist and expert in male sexual dysfunction at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, comes in. "A lot of men have the expectation to be as they were 15 years ago, but that is not a reasonable expectation," he says. "They worry about what their partner will expect, but if they worry about that, chances are that makes matters worse and they won't be able to have an erection."
Many men take Viagra, of course. "They treat [the dysfunction] like they have a cold," he says.
But there are men who don't want to use Viagra or can't for medical reasons.
So, another kind of intimate sexual discussion has to take place under dim, cinematic lights.
But when it's all over and done, there arises an epiphany - best emphasized by a swelling, tear-jerking sound track.
"When I was younger, these were just not the kind of conversations I had to think about or know how to have," says another fiftysomething divorced woman.
Her new lover, also in his 50s, confessed to her that he was impotent. "We worked it out. It requires a certain acceptance, because you realize it's not going to change, and you have to decide if you can live with that. But the sex was amazing. You realize that you are here to make love, not screw your brains out."
I will leave the kind of conversation they had -- the tone of it, its humour and kindness -- to your imagination, dear reader. But I add this. She looks like Sissy Spacek. And her lover? Think Kris Kristofferson. The name of the romantic comedy could be A Kiss Is Still a Kiss. Directed by Ron Howard, that genius filmmaker of everyday human drama.
