The Hotel Triton is a friendly little hotel near the gates of Chinatown in downtown San Francisco. In that spirit of friendliness they put on a happy hour in the evening for guests. At a loose end, I betook myself down to the lobby for a convivial beverage.
Barely had I popped the top on my locally crafted IPA than I was amicably accosted by a woman across the ice bucket. Let’s call her Stephanie. She was similarly at a loose end, it seemed, and she pursued me to a nearby two seater lounge.
What shall I say? She was attractive, perhaps ten years younger than me, vivacious (loquacious), and intent upon furthering our acquaintance. At my advanced age, this was undeniably flattering, and I was not unreceptive.
We exchanged our potted life histories, partook of another drink, and the conversation became a little more edgy. It became apparent to me that Stephanie would not have been averse to continuing our conversation upstairs, which I found rather disconcerting. I had by this time informed her of my recent bereavement, which she glossed over with barely a platitude.
I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. Had this encounter occurred thirty or forty years previously, I might have been tempted to take her up on her implicit invitation. She was a widow herself, she informed me, but life goes on, does it not?
Well, it does, after a fashion, but it isn’t the same. The vision of this woman naked in my bed (or hers), hungry for a physical intimacy which I did indeed crave, but only in an abstract, self pitying sense, I confess appalled me.
I found I could no longer entertain what now seemed a vulgar charade, and made an awkward exit.
This encounter raised in my mind, however, a philosophical conundrum. Am I hereafter resigned, or fatalistically assigned to pass the rest of my life without the solace of flesh pressed to flesh? Would it be, were I to give in to the urge to hold and to be held by another woman, an act of unfaithfulness?
My wife and I had progressed some years before her death to a peaceful celibacy. I would certainly have enjoyed continued sexual congress, but I was content. There was, after all, still the unmitigated joy of simple bodily proximity, and the continuing thrill of our intellectual and emotional intimacy.
In truth, I’ve already come to the realisation, (and thereby resolved my conundrum) that I am content to confine myself to my accustomed half of my half empty bed, and, yes, to do otherwise would indeed be unfaithful.
life echoes 