Mirror (Blogohphilia 14.16)

 Susan couldn't sleep. She stared at the naked image in the full length mirror.

The dark hair was increasingly flecked with gray, but still long and soft.  The body was thicker, belly like a bag of potatoes, a butt like one of those rivet strips to let blind people know they've come to a curb. But the shape that set men on fire was still there. The breasts were the most surprising. Soft and a little wrinkled, they still held their shape. For 55, she couldn't complain.

She smiled. The weekend at Hilton Head had been his idea. She'd gone along with it simply because she was tired of staring at the same old walls. Walking along the beach, a young woman jogged by in a bikini and his eyes followed. Would it all end like Julie Andrew's character in the movie "10", with her being dumped for the Delilah? There was only so much she could do to keep her looks. 

The answer came as they stood on the dock, watching the harvest moon rise over the bay. He slipped a chubby arm around her waist, saying she was a cask of fine wine. The description shook her-a cask, not a bottle?  When she turned, she saw a  smile bigger than the harvest moon rising over the bay. More for him to savor and when he died, he'd remember the taste in heaven. He always had a way with words. 

He took his drink and she took hers, then they took each others'.  Night jasmine and gardenia surrounded their moonlight serenade. They danced while he sang "The Way You Look Tonight, offkey as the boats rattled in the moorings below them. 

"Am I Beautiful?" She asked the image.

Billy snored in the bed behind her, love permeating the room.

The answer was yes, she was beautiful to him.

And that was all that mattered.