experiment: going on a blind date

he bucked into the house half an hour early, forgetting the knock. a sweaty triangle of forehead limned by two licks of matte brown. frightful eyes, opening and closing with the regularity of a pulse. solid arms, encased in grey sleeves, starched, solid. the usual wireframed westernwear. for all i knew he was skeletal underneath.

he spotted me exiting the kitchen and let the door free behind him. he jumped a bit to hear the heavy crack as it clasped the frame. He said hello and his name.

"We," (oh hell, are we a We?) "are going to do something fun. Ya'll never think to guess it."

"Stomping divots?"

He swept to the side suddenly, like he'd stepped on a snake whose acquaintance he'd once made. He lifted the cotton arms attached to his grub hands and clapped them once over his head, firm. Grunted.

No idea. Maybe he's dancing. It occurs to me yes, in all awful reality, he is attempting a dance. A stomp. A misfired missile of a joke that came back and knocked me square.

"Well, what is it?" I submitted.

At this mark, he took determined dancesteps over to the couch wherewhich I had docked to play observant and bemused. As he did, the clunk of his chip boots clawed at the floor that I had spent half a day and half a can of wood oil polishing. His cheek creased in its pleasure.

"You're good."

The moment I flattered this out and saw his eyes dilate in responsive lust (or possibility) I regretted it. So rotten at sarcasm.

"We," he said in an unbefitting lilt, "are going to Flagstaff."

Flagstaff. Fairly close. Fair enough.

He smiled. I mirrored.

This dance of a conversation was one I knew, and it was my turn to dip or be dipped, but I quickly filled out my mental dancecard and kept mum.

He shifted antsy back and forth on his heels. Looking down, one boot was black and one was navy. He was so excited it broke my unbreakable heart.

"Flagstaff?" He repeated this, as if I hadn't heard him the first time.

I waited. I saw the bait, that old soggy worm being dangled and gutted clean through the throat, but I wouldn't take it. Not for all the tea in China. Not for all the peyote in Flagstaff.

"You want to know what it is we're gonna do?"

I answered with a slow lift of shoulders and smiled with a toothless elegance I'd perfected in Sunday School when asked a question about chastity.

He slid closer, rubbing his dirty blue legs against the silk fall of my one and only real dress. The kind that had been bought on credit at the insistence of a pesky aunt and a peskier commission shrill. A wasted polish.

With delicate cupped hands, he bent over my top six inches, his bolo tie dangling its thready sway across my face as if to hypnotize. He whispered.

"Wine tasting."

Then he stuck his tongue down my throat.


what i have learned:

i love lying. i lie all the time. this is one of those lies. sometimes i write lies. a lot of times i write lies. i actually write lies on another blog. i've been doing it for some time now. a whole, succulent blog of lies. short lies, most. sad lies, most. if you'd like an invitation to it, let me know.