Hitchhiker

Hitchhiker
  
    I had forsworn romance for the rest of this life. But sometimes lessons need to be repeated until they sink into the marrow of the soul. And so one rainy night she comes in a madras summer dress.  
     I pick her up by the roadside where she hitchhikes on a lonely Louisiana highway in the sugar cane fields. “Hey, mister can you give me a lift?”
     “Hop on in. What brought you out in this kind of weather?”  
     “Oh, my ex dropped me off by the side of the road.”
     “I could swear I know you from somewhere.”
     She replies, “No, but I sure wish I’d met you before that jerk of a guy I was with before. How come I never met a guy like you who is willing to give a girl, a total stranger, a ride in the rain? That is the mark of a true gentleman.”  
     A cloud of birds takes flight overhead, an omen for either good or bad, which I cannot tell. She says, “Hey do you have a place to crash tonight? If not you can stay with me.”  
     “You know your place sounds a lot less solitary than mine. So I’ll take you up on your offer.”  
     She says, “Well I don’t know how long I’ll be living at my place. But you’re welcome to be with me for the duration of my living there.” Her answer is cryptic but enticing.  
     We ascend a levee and descend into her front yard. Her two-story house welcomes me with the comfort of a woman. She sits on the bed we will share. “Boopsie boo, it has a nice bounce. We’ll be sleeping on a trampoline,” she lilts.  
     One night she reveals the true nature of why her residence here is short in time. “My ex took me to strip joints and even made me put money in her leg garter. He had me play like a hooker for him. I felt like I really was his prostitute. So, I am about to be betrothed to Jesus. Once I enter the nunnery there will be no men in my life but Christ. But I want to know passion with a man one last time. This last man took photos of me to create a nude gallery of my poses with which to remember me after I made my inevitable departure. He shared them with his friends but I demure to speak of these things.”
     “Why are you ashamed to tell me?”
     Marsha says, “Not so much ashamed. But you may not have the knives and forks to properly dine on what I am offering. You may mistake it for the main course when in fact it is only a sweet dessert with a bitter aftertaste. If I feed you a sugar plum you will want the whole pie.”     
     “We’re not all made from the same mold” is my tremulous reply.  
     “Men are driven by the carnality of that I’m sure. But we women have desires too. So I suppose we’re no better in that regard. However, our fleshly needs don’t rule our hearts.”  
     “My heart belongs to you for as long as you breathe,” I say.
     She continues, “Care for a cough drop?” I pop her offering into my mouth.
     “My favorite flavor, orange.”
     She grabs me by the hair and makes love to my mouth with her tongue. She asks, “How did that feel for you?”
     “When you penetrated my mouth with your tangy tongue your taste splashed into me like freshly squeezed satsumas.”
     “Now, let’s suck on the lemon cough drops from my purse. Kiss me you fool! Now, how did that feel?”  
     I say, “You felt creamy and citrusy like my first taste of lemon meringue pie.”
     “With homemade lemon custard made from scratch,” she asserts. “Your kiss tasted like rainbow sherbet melting in my mouth” she attests.  
     “Before we make whoopee I need to ask a couple of questions. First, if a Pompeiian woman came alive, stepped off an erotic fresco, and offered to fulfill your most decadent fantasies would you stay with me?”  
     I answer, “Of course I would. How could a Roman floozy even begin to compare to you my Venus Botticelli?”
     She says, “Oh John I am swooning. Now, if a kidnapper said, ‘It’s either you or the girl’ what would you do?”  
     I reply, “I’d do what any true gentleman would do. Does that answer your question?”
     Marsha exclaims, “Yes! Yes, it does.” She is breathless. “John, I feel my youth slipping away. Hold onto me and never let go.” The days unfold through the hot months and we find our own heat in her king size boudoir bed.  
     Suddenly a party of women and one man enters her bungalow. A woman says, “Hey girl, you need a road trip. We’re headed to Costa Rica with our wheels to take us there. Care to join us?”  
     My love says, “Of course. John, this isn’t your kind of trip. Please don’t be hurt if we don’t invite you.”  
     I reply, “No problem, my shyness would pose an obstacle in a group setting.”  
     She replies, “If you don’t mind I’d like you to help me close up the place when I leave.”  
     “Of course, I wouldn’t want to stay without you here. My heart would pine for you the whole time you’re gone.”  
     “This is a woman’s way of saying goodbye,” she says.  
     I say, “They didn’t teach us the female language in school. Do you still need help closing up?”    
     “Just pack your bags and kiss me. I’ll do the rest.”  
     “I’ll forgo the kiss but bid thee farewell.”  
     “Hey, can your male instinct to separate sex from love withstand another lovemaking?”  
     I say, “I think your female inseparability of love and sex is talking.”  
     She replies, “I’ve got you by the balls and you have me by the heart.”
     “You know even us men fall in love in bed.”
     “Mine wasn’t the only broken heart at goodbye. Your eyes were chandeliers of tears,” she says.
     I say, “Your eyes are Mirror Balls reflecting colors across the spectrum of your emotions.”
    She replies, “They reflect the rainbow in your smile. How could I banish a man with such prismatic pulsations from my boudoir?”
     “Well, when you touch me the lazars in my body beam heat into my flesh,” I say.
     “We sure are buttering each other up,” she says.
     “Your tongue felt like a stick of butter when you kissed me.”
     She says, “Was I the real thing or margarine?”
     I reply, “You are genuine and authentic.”
     She says, “Isn’t it funny how we went from light devices to dairy products?”
     “But like the Bard said lovers and madmen are  
not so different or something like that.”
     She replies, “And it is a girl’s prerogative to change her mind.”
     I say, “Oh, Jeez.”
     She replies, “Tsk tsk, how could a little lazar and butter talk come between us?”
     I say, “Did I give you the juju eyes from the get-go?”
     She replies, “You were patient as a hound dog expecting no more than scraps.”
     I say, “Amazing how love can change one’s topic or plans.”
     She replies, “I thought I’d be sleeping to the chatter of howler monkeys this summer.”    
     I say, “What about the road trip?”  
     She replies, “You are my Costa Rica.”