Elena had recently come to find that there might actually be more to the cliché about men preferring younger women. As in, maybe it was about more than just their “looks.” Maybe it was also about their “functionality.” The revelation dawned on her quite unwantedly and unexpectedly just a few months after her fifty-third birthday. It was a Friday night (and she remembered the date distinctly because it was their standing appointment for “sex night”). Burt had arrived home later than usual from work, which had added to Elena’s already general vexation and suspicion. She found it particularly disrespectful because she had spent half the day slaving away in the kitchen to make Burt’s favorite meal: oh so predictably pretentious coq au vin. Not only that, but she had gone out of her way on ambience as well. Setting up the scarcely used dining room and determining just the right amount of candelabra to secure the perfect mood lighting.

Looking back on that day, Elena supposed she could see how, from Burt’s perspective, her grand romantic gesture was more pathetic than it was endearing. As if he had sussed out what she was really trying to do—which was hold on to him. Keep him close somehow. That sort of thing, in Elena’s now vast experience, had always made men recoil. Especially men like Burt: ten years older than her, high-powered and fiercely independent. Yet Elena couldn’t stop herself. She had to do this. To show him—prove to him—how invested she was in the relationship. Despite how distant they had become with one another lately. So distant that even their “sex night” had started to feel more like a chore than something to look forward to. And that was the vibe that Burt immediately put out upon walking through the door and seeing what awaited him.

Still, he tried his best to show some enthusiasm…initially. But when Elena started peppering him with questions—where had he been? why was he so late?—it was all Burt could do to keep from turning on his heel and walking out the door again. While he knew, of course, that Elena was right to be suspicious, that obviously he had been cheating on her, he still resented her for this line of questioning, this form of hen-pecking. Didn’t she know the unspoken rules? The “law” of their union? As far as he was concerned, he provided well enough for her to do whatever the hell he wanted. Yet here he was, capitulating to her demand for this goddamn weekly fuck appointment when all he wanted to be doing was fucking someone else.

And after stuffing his face with her blasted coq au vin, that sentiment was further confirmed by what happened next. There Elena was, in what she thought was her sexiest, skimpiest lingerie, licking Burt’s nipple (riddled with gray hair though it was) and working her way down to his “magic stick” (granted, it wasn’t so magical unless he popped a Viagra beforehand, which, mercifully, he did). It was then her custom to tease his cock by wetting it with her mouth so that she could have some “natural lube” to stroke him a bit.

She was going about this—the stroking—as usual when, all at once, her fingers started to cramp up. As they did, they also ached and throbbed with a pain like no other she had ever experienced before. To the point where she had to stop right when, as Burt himself kept repeating, he was about to cum. And so jarring was her abrupt lack of movement that Burt screamed, “Ah Jesus, why did you stop?! Are you a fucking sadist now?!” When he finished this torrent (though not the kind he would have preferred), that’s when he noticed her contorted, almost mangled-looking hand. His demeanor changed instantly as he then asked her with genuine concern, “Are you okay? What happened?”

Elena had no idea. She told him as much when she admitted, “I don’t know. But I’m freaking out. And I can’t finish you off.”

“That should be the last thing you care about right now. I’m calling Dr. Bayard. He can probably be here in twenty minutes.”

After Dr. Bayard’s expensive house call, his assessment was that Elena was suffering from acute rheumatoid arthritis. And that, going forward, “attacks” like this might become more common. This information was seemingly taken in stride by Burt, but Elena knew what he was thinking: that she was finished, kaput, damaged goods, day-old bread. What good would she be to him now if she couldn’t even reliably give one of her famous “handies”? Oh sure, she could still suck, but Elena knew Burt preferred the effect—the feel—of both methods alternating in concert until the hand or the mouth won out to make him explode. She was terrified that without the benefit of hand and mouth, she would soon be living hand to mouth because he would no longer want her. No longer desire her in any way.

She cursed herself for not seeing this coming. But she honestly thought she had more time. That there were years ahead of her before she had to start worrying about such things. All along, she had feared menopause, when, apparently, she should have instead been noticing the early signs of “RA.” Which included inflammation. Something she definitely had, but became so used to ignoring it that she never thought twice about it. Then Elena thought maybe it was better not to know ahead of time, to be caught by surprise like this. Because if she had known, she would have just been panicking twenty-four/seven, speculating as to when it might “hit.” And, because of her cynical nature, one of the first speculations she would have made is that it would happen in the middle of a hand job. Go figure.

In the days that followed, Elena could tell that Burt was going out of his way to be “nice” to her, to make her feel better about the whole thing. This meant engaging in acts that achieved the exact opposite: so-called loving “head pets” and cheek caresses, for example. But never so much as any sign of genuine lust for her. As far as Elena could tell, she had entered some kind of “do not touch” category. Since she was now “handle with care.” And on the following “sex night,” when she tried to insist on business as usual, he insisted even more vehemently on just lying together in bed.

After enduring three rounds of being pushed off of his body, Elena finally let him have his way…for the time being. But while he kept living his day-to-day existence as if the sky weren’t falling (right onto their sex life), Elena got to work. She began practicing with a religious fervor. Using, what else, a banana. And what she was practicing, of course, was how to give a hand job in her current arthritic state. She figured the more she got used to how to “work the angles” of her “reimagined” hand shape, the more adept she would become at getting back into her groove. So it was that weeks went by, and, after much “jiggering” with the bananas (that she would usually end up eating), Elena decided to throw herself anew at Burt, refusing to take no for an answer this time.

Maybe because he pitied her, or was simply too tired to fight it, Burt “let” Elena “have her way with him.” As if he were doing her a favor when, in reality, it was very much the opposite. Even so, Elena knew he would realize that he had been making a mistake all these weeks in going without one of her “patented” hand jobs. Now revised. New and improved, she would dare say. And, based on his “writhing with pleasure” reaction, she felt her “daring” to say so (internally) was correct. Something about the way her fingers (now more rigid than any stiff pénis could be) rubbed against his flesh felt surprisingly incredible to him—even though he would have thought quite the contrary. In fact, at first, he did only allow her to attempt the arthritic hand job out of sympathy, only to find himself almost instantaneously enjoying it. Totally losing himself in this new sensation that made him tell her, during their post-coital “in each other’s arms” position, “Damn, I actually wish you’d gotten this condition sooner.”

Elena looked up at him and said, “Let’s not get carried away.” She then paused for a moment before taking the plunge on asking, “Does this mean you’ll stop cheating on me now?”

Burt let out a reflexive chuckle and replied, “Let’s not get carried away.”