The Sensual Retiree

Joan’s adventures and encounters from her mid-sixties up to her early nineties, and we learn some woman’s sexual interests don’t always diminish with age

Joan had expected her retirement to be straightforward. She had always associated the word, to “retire” something, as putting it out of harm’s way, out of reach from the rest of the world for the rest of its time on earth. She rather relished in ideas of this isolation, associating it with the effortless simplicity of relaxation. So, undoubtedly, it came as quite a surprise when things did not go to plan

After her husband, Phil retired, Joan and Phil embarked on an epic round Australia caravan holiday. Joan discovers a new sexuality and is enjoying her new life when suddenly Phil has a heart attack and dies

She sells the family home and buys into a retirement village by the sea. She forms friendships with three other senior women and soon discovers that their zest for life and actions are not what one usually associates with older people.

With the premature death of her husband, Phil, so early on into her retirement Joan packed up the family home and moved everything she owned into a little retirement house just off the coast, intending ​on living the rest of her days on earth like a ghost, well and truly forgotten by everyone else. Well and truly “retired”. 

She had expected to give up, living day by day eating cups of liquid pudding and reading old books. What she had not expected was to meet a string of distinguishing people in that very place that would make giving up a little more complicated than she had planned.

While on a cruise with her lifelong friend, Melody, she strikes up a friendship with one of the male passengers, but he wanted a physical relationship whereas Joan is not interested in anything other than company. To her surprise, she shortly after falls in love with a gay Hollywood producer.

Back at the retirement village, she does eventual form an intimate relationship, but, it doesn’t last long.

From a retired nun, and a series of prudent friends that would later become wistful lovers. These compelling encounters help Joan to reclaim an appetite for passions she had not allowed herself to think about in decades. 

This story begins and ends with a newspaper reporter interviewing Joan, who is now in aged care, about her life and concludes with her receiving the “Senior of the Year” award.