Tom rides a bike to town

My father's lust lasted until he was at least 65. He lived with me for a year then. He met one of my wife's friends--a 22-year-old woman--who lived in town, ten miles away over a formidable hill. One day, without telling anyone, he took an old rickety bicycle out of the garage and rode it over the mountain, on a narrow road that cars barreled along at top speed. Close to town, the road crosses a river on a bridge that is not built to accommodate bicycles. When he got back home, hours later, in the dark, he looked half dead. I believe that was his last escapade.

Now he's 79 and feels death very near. I've been after him for the last year or two to tell me more about his sexual history. I knew a lot, but there was a lot more I'd only heard rumors of. He would always refuse, until one night, not long ago, we were on the phone and he began to tell me things. One of them was that he had almost decided to sleep with my wife, back then. I was amazed that he thought she would have accepted his advances. But he seemed quite confident. He'd always had great success along those lines.