Older Than His Time

By Velma Benson
© 8/1/06

This story is a tribute to Verna Benson and was inspired by her story “Old Before His Time”, which can be found at the following Fictionmania link.  Any subsequent tributes I write for Verna Benson will be listed at Sapphires under the name Velma Benson.  I am not Verna, but wherever she is, I wish her well and want to thank her for her stories.

Link to Verna's Stories on Fictionmania

If you liked Verna’s story about a mother who turned her 18 year old son into a chain-smoking old woman, then you’ll love this story.  If you hated Verna’s story, you’ll hate this one more.  But I hope you love it.
On to the story!

 

I graduated from school with the rest of my class when I was 18.  Unlike my friends who took jobs or went on to college, I stayed home and tried to find my self.  It wasn’t that I was particularly lazy; I just couldn’t find my niche.  Oddly enough, my parents seldom got on my case about being a slacker.  I think they accepted my limitations and were tolerant of my shortcomings.

My parents have a good marriage.  They had me late in life.  My mom was 40 when I was born.  My dad was a few years older.  He’s in great shape for a man pushing 70.  He doesn’t smoke and exercises religiously.  My mom, on the other hand, prefers to manage her weight with housework and a three pack a day addiction to her More Menthol 120s.  They’re bad for her but she loves them and Dad never seems to mind, as he’s always lighting them for her and kissing her.  They love each other a lot.

Mom dresses like an old woman, which is what she is.  She does her housework in her silk nightgown and housecoat and seldom changes into street clothes unless she goes out or her friends come over.  She wears skirts and dresses most of the time.

My mom and dad have lots of friends.  Mom’s friends are always coming over to the house.  They’re her age for the most part.  Some are younger and some are older, but not one of them is younger than fifty.  The one thing they have in common is that they all smoke like fiends.  And they all smoke women’s cigarettes.  You know the kind, Virginia Slims and Capris.  My mom’s best friend, a woman named Agnes Alcott, smoked More Menthol 120s, just like my mom.  Mrs. Alcott and my mom were a lot a like.  I guess that’s why I liked her so much.  She’s the only woman that I ever saw smoke as much or more than my mom.  Her husband is a nice guy too.  His name is Frank, and he’s best friends with my dad.

We’d been spending summer vacations with the Alcotts for as long as I can remember.  It was always on the boring side for me since the Alcotts didn’t have any kids.  But it wasn’t that bad.  It just seemed that all we did was hang around the cabin.  That was another thing, we’d been going to the same mountain cabin every summer for the last twelve years.  I think I know that place as well as I know my parents house.

Mrs. Alcott passed away a week after I graduated from high school.  It was sudden and unexpected.  Mr. Alcott took it hard and began spending a lot of time with my dad after that.  My mom missed Mrs. Alcott too, and so did her friends.  They worried about Mr. Alcott being alone.  I’d watch as they sat around smoking and brainstorming about possible women they could fix Mr. Alcott up with.  As far as they were concerned, no one was right for Frank other than Agnes.

I was sitting around the house one day when all my mother’s friends were in the kitchen talking and gossiping.  I heard one of them mention my name and ask my mom why I was still hanging around the house.  Why wasn’t I making a life for my self?  Did I have a girlfriend?  I listened from the living room as my mom made excuses for me.   One of them asked if was gay.

“I don’t know,” said my mom.  “I’ve always wondered, but I’ve never asked.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that Mike might be gay?”  The voice belonged to a woman named Barbara Collins.  She smokes Virginia Slims.  I’ve always noticed what kind of cigarettes women smoke for some reason.  The kind of cigarettes a woman smokes either fits her or doesn’t.  Virginia Slims fit Mrs. Collins well.

I don’t smoke, or at least I didn’t.  It’s not that I never thought about trying it, but it just didn’t seem right, me being a guy and all.  I grew up in a house where the woman smokes and the man doesn’t.  Besides, my mom never would have allowed it.  She was very much against young people smoking.

Any way, that conversation between my mom and her friends was the beginning of big changes for me.  A seed was sewn in my mother’s head and she ran it across my father later that night.

I found my parents in the kitchen the next morning.  My dad was drinking coffee and my mom was smoking a More Menthol 120 in her silk housecoat.  I could tell by the expressions they wore that they had something important to discuss with me.  I thought they were going to get on to me about getting a job, and in a way they did, but in a round about kind of way.

They told me they loved me but they were worried about me.  They blamed their selves for not preparing me better.  I told them I could look for a job but they said I’d never be capable of finding a job that would support a family and me.

“Speaking of having a family,” said my father.  “Your mother and I were wondering if you might be gay.  It’s not like you’ve ever had a girlfriend before.”

The question surprised me and I didn’t know how to answer him.  But he wasn’t being mean or accusing, so I answered him as honestly as I could.  I told him I’d never really thought about it and figured that I just hadn’t met the right person.

“Frank Alcott is a nice man,” said my mother.

I asked her what in the world Mr. Alcott had to do with anything.  He isn’t gay and he’s old enough to be my father.

My father told me that he and my mother had been talking about things and thought it might be good for both of us if we were to get together.  “The two of you could be good for each other,” he said.

I was really confused at this point.  I thought that maybe they’d gone off the deep end, but like I said, they weren’t being mean and I’d never known them to be crazy.  So I listened and heard them out.

They explained that they hadn’t talked to Mr. Alcott about it because they wanted to talk to me first.  They said we could try it out and see how things worked.  Maybe one thing would lead to another.

“What,” I asked?  “What thing might lead to another?”

“We were thinking that maybe you might make a good wife for Frank,” said my mother.

“Of course you’d have to make some big changes,” said my father.  “And from what I’d understand, there’d be some risks involved.”

“You’d have to become a woman,” said my mother.  “A much older woman, like Agnes.  As a matter of fact, Frank wouldn’t like you if you weren’t like Agnes.”

“You want me to be an old woman,” I asked?

Their answer was yes.  They did.  They said it would be good for me.  They wanted me to have someone in my life the way they had each other in their life.  They wanted Frank to have someone in his life the way he used to.  They said they wanted me to be happy.

I told them thanks but no thanks.  And then I laughed.  They were just kidding after all.  Weren’t they?

My parents weren’t kidding.  I was given an ultimatum.  Do as they said or do for my self on my own without their help.  They were serious!  I couldn’t make it on my own.  They knew it and I knew it.  So I agreed to their unconditional terms.  I agreed to become an older woman, a woman like Mrs. Alcott and my mother.

My parents kept me out of sight from Mr. Alcott and my mother’s friends for the next four weeks.  They made up some story about how I had gone on biking vacation in Europe.  Everyone was pleased, saying it would be good for me to experience being away from home.

Those four weeks were fast and painful.  I was taken to doctor and put on hormones.  My teeth were pulled and my mouth was refitted with dentures.  The cosmetic surgery was the worst.  Of course I was under anesthesia while it happened.  It’s not like we live in a third world country.  But recovery was physically painful as well as emotionally draining.

My appearance changed so radically that I was unrecognizable even to my self.  The doctor who did the surgery remarked that it was the first time he’d ever intentionally made anyone look older.  I was given big saggy breasts and my hips were widened.  He injected me with chemicals that aged my skin.  My mom took me to a salon and instructed them to dye my long hair gray, and shorten the length into a style more befitting a “woman of my age.”

My dad joked that I was aging ten years a week.  He was right.  At the end of four weeks I looked and felt like a sixty-year-old woman!  All the while this was happening, my mom insisted on making me wear nicotine patches.  It started with one patch on my shoulder, but by the time four weeks had passed, I was wearing 12 at one time.  My legs, arms and back were covered with nicotine patches.  And then she made me take them off all at once.

I was relieved to be rid of the patches at first.  But it didn’t take long for the withdrawal symptoms to kick in.  Once my mom saw I couldn’t take it any more, she offered me a More Menthol 120 from her pack.

I told her thanks but no thanks because I don’t smoke.  My mom threw away the rest of the nicotine patches and left me with the long green pack and a lighter.  She told me I’d change my mind about that soon, and she was right.  I fumbled through my first cigarette fifteen minutes later.

The first puff did nothing for me and I told her so.  That’s when she told me I needed to learn how to inhale the smoke like she did, rather than just blowing it out of my mouth.  I did as she showed me and the first puff burned my lungs.  It hurt but it felt good.  I don’t know how to describe it other than to say I was hungry for the smoke.

 My mom gave me a pair of old lady glasses with big frames the same day she gave me my first cigarette. They weren’t prescription or magnified, so they didn’t hurt my eyes, but gosh I looked funny.  Actually, I didn’t look funny.  I looked quite normal for a sixty-year-old woman.  She wanted me to wear them because Mrs. Alcott wore glasses just like them.

In addition to the surgeries, those four weeks had been filled with training.  My mom had taught me how to take care of a man’s house.  I had become adept at ironing and washing and cooking.  She taught me how to walk in high heels and what to know about talking to a man that was 40 years my senior.  It was like a history lesson.  My mom taught me everything I needed to know to pass as an older woman.  And now she was teaching me how to smoke like one.  I never realized how much thought a woman puts into smoking like a lady, but now I do.  The hardest part was learning how to hold it between my fingers like my mom does.  My mom gave me a faux leather cigarette case like hers.  But hers was red and mine was black.  The case had a place for a lighter and she told me to carry it with me at all times and always make sure to keep extra packs in my purse.

I was embarrassed to have to smoke in front of my dad that night when he came home from playing golf with Mr. Alcott.  But he seemed genuinely pleased and asked if he could light my cigarette for me.  It actually made me feel rather sexy, as sexy as a sixty-year old woman with sagging breasts can feel.

By the end of the week, I was smoking three packs of More Menthol 120s a day- just like my mom.  It made me feel so old but feminine at the same time.

I’ve always been close to my mom, but our relationship changed once I went from being her son to being her friend.  It was fun and I liked it.  We both liked it.  We were like equals as we worked around the house in our silk housecoats, chain smoking and gabbing away while we did the housework.

My parents were proud of how far I’d come and decided it was time to introduce me to my mom’s friends as “Michelle”, my mother’s sister.  I was now Michelle and I had come to live with my sister.  Mike was gone.  He’d disappeared in Europe without as much as sending a postcard.  Ungrateful bastard!  My parents invented a story revolving around my being a widow.  My husband had died two years earlier.  I had no children and I was lonely.  So that’s how it went that first day.  I was introduced to my mother’s friends as her sister.

I’m not going to lie to you.  I was having fun!  I had grown up admiring my mother’s friends from afar and now I was one of them.  No longer would I have to be content to eavesdrop from the living room.  I joined them in the kitchen, taking a seat in the chair that had once been reserved for Mrs. Alcott.

Here I was, only 18 years old!  And I was being accepted into my mother’s crowd as one of them!  I was a woman like them, an older woman.  I was their equal as I reached inside my purse and removed the faux black cigarette case my mother had given me.

Barbara Collins smiled at me approvingly as she lit a cigarette from her pack of Virginia Slims and spoke.  “Another smoker.  You’ll fit in fine.”

I relished her comment as I lit my cigarette and contributed to the cloud of smoke hanging over the kitchen.

“I can’t believe it!” stated Andrea Thomas.  “Michelle smokes More Menthol 120s!”

I feigned surprise as I inhaled another lung full of smoke.

“Just like Agnes,” said Barbara.  “It’s a good thing Frank isn’t here to see you.  Not that we’ll be able to hide you from him now that you’re living here.”

“Who’s Frank?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.

My mother went into the story of Frank and Agnes as if she were telling it to me for the first time.

“We have to get the two of them together,” said Andrea.

My mom agreed that it was a good idea, telling me that I would adore Frank.

*****

Arranging a meeting between Mr. Alcott and I was as easy as having my father invite him to dinner, which he did the next day.

It’s funny.  I was nervous about that first dinner, but I never really thought about it as a blind date.  After all, I’d known Mr. Alcott all my life, or had I?  That’s when it dawned on me.  I didn’t know Frank Alcott.  I knew Mr. Alcott.  I wouldn’t be meeting him as Mike, the 18-year-old son of his best friend.  I’d be meeting him as Michelle, my mother’s sixty-year-old chain smoking sister.

I’d been so caught up in my transformation that I’d lost track of why I was doing it in the first place.  I was doing this so that Mr. Alcott would fall in love with me.  I was scared and said so to my mom.

She reminded me that I’d be lucky to have a man as good as Mr. Alcott looking after me and I had to agree, as he is a nice guy.

“But what if he likes me,” I asked?  “What do I do if he asks me out?”

“Well you’ll say yes of course.”

“And if he tries to kiss me,” I asked?

“We’re just having dinner,” said my mom.  “He won’t try to kiss you.”

“But what about later if he does ask me out?  What do I do then?”

“You know,” said my mother.  “It’s a little late to be backing out of this.  It’s not as if you can ever go back to being Mike.”

“I know that Mom.  And I know what it means to everyone.  I’m just saying I’m a little scared, you know.”

My mom put her hand on my shoulder and kissed me lightly on the cheek the way I would have expected her to kiss me if I had really been her sister.  “It’s a little early to be thinking about sex isn’t it?  He hasn’t even met you yet.”

“How did you know I was thinking about sex?”

“Because I would be thinking about it too if I were in your situation.  Frank Alcott may be up in years but from what Agnes said; he’s still a virile man.  But he’s also a gentleman and he’ll take it slow, so we’ll just cross that bridge when we get there.  Don’t worry honey.  We’ll think of something.  First things first.  You’ve got a job to do. You have to take his mind off Agnes.”

To make a long story short, that’s exactly what I did.  I met Mr. Alcott that night and took his mind off Mrs. Alcott.  It was so weird smoking in front of him and calling him Frank.  But it was fun too.  He asked me out before he went home and I said yes.  My parents told me how proud they were of me while I cleaned up the kitchen.

Mr. Alcott and I dated for almost three months before he got up the nerve to kiss me.  Gosh that was weird but it was nice too.  I was afraid of what I’d think about kissing another guy, especially a guy as old as Mr. Alcott, but it was really nice and we started kissing a lot after that.

I loved the way he treated me.  He made me feel so special the way he opened doors for me and lit my cigarettes, the way my dad lights my mom’s cigarettes for her.

By this time my mom and I were like real sisters and I had become best friends with her best friends.  I told them all about my first kiss with Frank and we all squealed and giggled like little girls.  I was really beginning to love my new life as Michelle and I had also fallen in love with Mr. Alcott.  I know its weird when you think about it but its not when you think about it hard enough.  I mean it really felt right being with him.  I did feel kind of bad about lying to him though, but when ever I’d say something to my parents about it; they would tell me we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.  So I tried not to think about it.  I just had a good time with him.

That’s exactly what I was doing the first time it happened.  We’d gone out to see a movie and he took me back to his house for a drink.  I wasn’t thinking about being a boy.  I was just thinking about what a good time I was having, sitting on the couch with Mr. Alcott and smoking cigarettes in front of him.  That’s when he kissed me and put his big hand on one of my sagging breasts.  I remember the shiver that raced up my spine when he touched me like that.  I wasn’t a stranger to having my breasts touched because I did it 20 times a day my self.  But it was the first time anyone other than myself had ever touched them and I liked it! 

That was also the first time anyone other than my parents had told me that they loved me.  Mr. Alcott told me he loved me and then he put my hand on his crotch!  I was so overwhelmed by what he said and the fact that my hand was sitting on his very hard penis.  I said the first thing that came into my mind.  I told him I loved him and then I unzipped his trousers, removed my dentures and put them on the coffee table before getting down on my knees in front of him.

I had been thinking about this night ever since our first date and had done my best to mentally prepare for it.  My mom and I had talked about it too.  She said it would be a good way to satisfy him and keep him interested without giving up my secret.

I was excited and happy.  I felt like a woman in love and I wanted to please my man.  His testicles were covered with a mass of gray pubic hair, which I stroked with a painted nail before lowering my mouth on his surprisingly hard penis.  It was surprising because I had heard a lot about guys having trouble getting it up when they were older and Mr. Alcott was 70 and as hard as a rock!

I’d never sucked a penis before that night but I had practiced with my mom using bananas at home, so I kind of knew what to do.  But after all, giving a blow job isn’t rocket science and it wasn’t like I was going to bite him because I didn’t have any teeth.

Mr. Alcott leaned back against the couch and groaned when I kissed the head of his penis.  I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled back a bit and admired the lipstick stain I’d left.  And then I dove in and sucked him for all I was worth as he ran his fingers through my dyed gray hair.  Several minutes later he was pushing his hips against my face and moaning hard as he filled my mouth with his ancient sperm.  I fought the urge to gag and did my best to swallow it all while he told me how good it felt.

I didn’t know what to do afterwards.  Should I kiss him?  But wouldn’t that be gross?  He wouldn’t want to kiss me again so soon after that.  And I was a mess.  Wasn’t I?  I kissed him on the forehead and told him I was going to the bathroom to freshen up.

I fixed my make-up and returned to the living room where I found him sitting on the couch with two glasses of wine sitting on the coffee table.  I put my dentures back in and sat down beside him and removed a long brown More Menthol 120 from my cigarette case.

I held it between my lips and allowed Mr. Alcott to light it for me.  He kissed me on the lips after I exhaled and told me how sexy I looked when I smoke.  I listened as he talked about Mrs. Alcott and how in love with her he’d been and how I reminded him of her.  He talked about her often and I was never jealous of his memory of her.  As a matter of fact I always felt proud when he compared me to her.

I was totally unprepared for what happened next.  Mr. Alcott stood up and dug a small box from his pocket and bent down to one knee.  He opened the box and showed me a gold ring with a large glittering diamond and asked me to marry him.

I wanted to say yes, but of course I couldn’t, at least not then.  I wasn’t ready.  This was the bridge my parents and I had talked about and I wasn’t physically or emotionally prepared to cross it.

“Thank you Frank, but I don’t know what to say.  I love you but I don’t know if I’m ready yet.”

He took the ring from the box and placed it on my finger, the one that wasn’t holding a cigarette, and he sat back down on the couch.

“Are you saying you’re not ready because you really think it’s too soon or because you’re afraid of sharing your secret with me?”

I took a deep breath and placed a hand to my sagging breasts.  “What secret,” I asked?

“I’ve known all along Mike.  Your father told me that first night we met.  He said I’d be doing you a favor if I made you feel comfortable as a woman.”

I put out my cigarette and nervously lit another one.  “You knew all along?  But you kissed me!”

“What can I say?  The longer I knew you, the more my feelings changed.  I fell in love with you.  My feelings for you are real Michelle.  I want to marry you.  I want to be your husband.”

“Oh Mr. Alcott!  I love you too,” I said as I threw my arms around him, being careful not to burn him with my cigarette.  “Of course I’ll marry you!  But what about the way I am.  I’m not a real woman you know.”

He looked into my eyes and told me I was a woman as far as he was concerned and he would treat me as such and nothing else would matter.  He stood up from the couch, took my hand and led me to the bedroom he had shared with Mrs. Alcott.

“Agnes would have wanted you to have these,” he said as he opened her closet and exposed a rack of old woman’s clothes.

“Oh Mr. Alcott!  I love them.  And I love you!”

******

Mr. Alcott and I agreed that it would be more special if we held off on having sex until after we were married.  He came over the next day and asked my father for permission to marry me.  Of course he said yes.

The big day came two weeks later.  I wore the same dress Mrs. Alcott had worn when she married Mr. Alcott.  We had to have it altered as I didn’t have the body of a twenty year old bride.  I felt so beautiful wearing it!  My mom told me that Mr. Alcott would be lucky if he didn’t have a heart attack when he saw me in it.

My mother and I had some deep conversations in the days leading up to my wedding.  She needed me to relieve her of the guilt she felt from depriving me of my life as a young man and getting me hopelessly addicted to cigarettes.  I assured her that I was happy and had no regrets.  My answer seemed to please her and she lightened up and began making jokes about how I had gotten old before my time.

“It’s funny,” she said as she lit a cigarette from her pack of More Menthol 120s and handed me the pack.  “A couple months ago you were my healthy 18 year old son.  Look at you now!  Your teeth are gone.  Your hair is gray.  Your skin is wrinkled like a prune.”  She laughed and took a big drag from her cigarette and exhaled.  “And your tits,” she said as she pointed at them.  “They’re bigger than mine and they hang down to your stomach!  And look at you smoke,” she said as I lit one of her More Menthol 120s.  “You couldn’t quit now if your life depended on it.”

“Neither could you,” I laughed as I exhaled.  “I’m really an old woman now, aren’t I?”

“Yes you are sweetie, and I’ve never been more proud of you than I am right now.  And the same goes for your father.  You’ve finally made something of your self.  You’re going to be a good man’s wife!”

We couldn’t have a real wedding that was legal, so we had a fake one instead, but everyone agreed that it counted and I was Mr. Alcott’s wife in the eyes of God.   We hired a justice of the peace to do the service, telling him that we were just renewing our vows so that we wouldn’t need to produce any paper work.  As far as our friends knew, we were really getting married.

My father gave me away my mom was my maid of honor.  We had the reception in the same building we rented for the ceremony.  The ceremony was brief but my lungs were aching for a cigarette as soon as I kissed Mr. Alcott.  I think I smoked the whole time the photographer took pictures.

I had a great time dancing with Mr. Alcott at our reception but I was itching to consummate our marriage.  I was ready for Mr. Alcott to make a real woman out of me.  I’ll never forget that feeling of him guiding me over the threshold of our hotel room.  He couldn’t carry me because he was too old, so we walked arm in arm.

He was kissing me as I wiggled out of my bridal clothes.  He wanted to take me for the first time in the nude but I persuaded him to let me wear a gown as I was still a little self-conscious of my sagging breasts and wrinkled skin.

Mr. Alcott took a Viagra pill before he got in bed and I smoked while we cuddled and waited for the pill to take effect.  I know I’m only 18, but I felt every day of 60 as I smoked those More Menthol 120s and let him kiss on my drooping breasts through the gown.

He took me after I finished my cigarette.  It was the first time either of us had experienced anal sex.  Heck, it was the first time I had experienced sex at all.  We did it with my tail propped up on a pillow so we could make love eye to eye.  It was painful but the joy on my husband’s face made it worth it as he orgasmed inside me.

After he was finished, Mr. Alcott rolled off of me and on to his side.  He picked up my cigarette case and lighter from the nightstand.  “I guess you’re probably ready for one of these,” he said as he removed a More Menthol 120 from the pack and placed it between my lips.  “I know Agnes enjoyed smoking after we did it.”

I thanked him for the cigarette and accepted his light.  “Ummm,” I said as I inhaled and exhaled.  “I can see why.  It’s wonderful,” I said as I snuggled closer to him and took his still erect penis in my hand.  I thought of my mom as I enjoyed my cigarette and played with my husband’s penis.  How many times had she done the same thing with my dad?  I was just like her now and the thought made me happy.

*********

Epilogue

*********

Mr. Alcott and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary last month and couldn’t be happier.  Unfortunately my dad passed away last spring.  My mom took it pretty hard, but she met a new guy who is quite a bit younger than her.  I know she loves him but she’s also kind of self-conscious about the age difference.  She talks about it a lot and wonders if they would be happier together if he grew older before his time.

The End

 

  since 8/10/06