I generally do not recycle articles. I also do not write a lot of fiction, but once a decade or so a story pops into my mind. When I do write fiction it is generally triggered by some story I have heard or something that has happened to me. Then my “imagination” runs wild extrapolating on of the former. Or sometimes – according to Señora about stories of her – I just make s*** up. Generally, I am stringing all those founts together.
The broken toe from a dropped bottle of tequila actually happened to a friend of my ex when we lived in Oklahoma City. A friend of Señora recently dropped a bottle of wine on her toe, breaking it, bringing this story back to mind. The rest of the story’s derivation is best left to the war time motto of “Loose lips, sinks ships.”
I enjoyed writing the story 12 years ago. Hopefully, you will enjoy reading it.
Now to the story…
Bottle of Tequila
He saw me limping down the hallway and asked,”looks like you had a wonderful time, what happened?” When he said that I was instantly back to her bedroom and recalling the events of the previous evening…
We had placed a few pillows behind our backs up against the headboard. The lights were still low. The Coltrane CD had started back around. Man, is he ever timeless. With the warm glow that can only be felt from energy well spent, we were both smoking cigarettes and idly chit chatting about absolutely nothing of consequence. I noticed that we had both pulled our knees toward our chests. The result was two well formed tents, side by side in the sheets. Mine was a good bit taller than hers. My mind flitted back to childhood days when my parents would take me to the circus. I wondered which tent was more interesting. Was it the larger one with the 3 rings of non-stop entertainment, or the smaller one with all the made up freaks and hucksters trying to separate you and your money? Laughing to myself I wondered where the “tunnel of love” was.
It was at that point I slapped myself softly and she looked at me funny.
“Just a weird thought,” I explained.
My vision drifted down to my left arm. I realized that I had left my Rolex knock-off on. It surprised me that she had not complained, especially so as taking it off was always part of the ritual. Another thought flittered through my mind, does this make me partially dressed or just not totally undressed?
I looked over at her and thought again how beautiful she was. Not a young woman and not an old woman. She was in the full bloom of womanliness and sexuality that can only come from a woman who has reached a certain degree of maturity. Only fifteen or so minutes earlier I was begging the bed to last just a little while longer. I had been sure it was going to collapse, but at that point I really did not care if it did.
She really was beautiful and smart, full of life and fun to be around, in bed or out of bed. I had felt the stirrings of feelings that were not of the simply lustful nature. I had been working my best to suppress them. After all I was only here a few months. We were just temporary lovers passing on the tides of life. The suppression was not totally working.
We had met several weeks ago. It was a Friday night. I was new in town. I was to be at this location for 3 to 6 months depending on how long the contract took. Being at loose ends I had left my room at the extended stay Hotel Generica. I walked into a neighborhood bar that was surprisingly nice. It had an almost pub like feel to it. I went to the bar and ordered a beer. I sat there for a while nursing the brew, watching a ballgame on the big screen hanging on the back wall of the place. Bottom of the seventh inning of a low scoring affair, tied game, the aforementioned lady sat down on the stool next to me.
She commented, “That young pitcher has a good fast ball, a good change up, but he needs to work on his move to first.”
Next thing I knew we are at dinner, and I had to read on ESPN.com the next day who won the game. We decided to meet again in a few days at the same cozy bar, and see what would happen.
We did meet, and things did happen. She explained to me that she had very demanding job that took a lot of her time and required her to travel much more than she cared for. She said it made it hard to maintain relationships.
She wondered out loud, “Are you okay with that?” “I will just have to call whenever I manage to have a night or two free back in town.”
It took about 2 seconds of reanalyzing that curvaceous body, I replied, “Oh I think I can deal with it.”
The next few weeks had been amazingly, wonderfully crazy. The project was just getting started, and was requiring long hours. She would call at odd hours and we would meet at the bar or at Hotel Generica. All in all the days and nights were passing at an astonishing rate. I was having the time of my life.
A few weeks into this madness I had to be at the home office for a few days. I got back into town in the middle of the afternoon that Sunday. I tried to check back into the hotel. The front desk clerk explained to me that most of the cleaning staff had been gathered up by ICE, and they were running behind in getting the rooms cleaned and ready. She went on to say that if I could wait a few hours all would be in good order and there would be a discount on my bill. Being on an expense account the discount did not really ring my chimes, but I knew my boss back at the home office would be pleased. After all it was his secretary that had booked me into these wonderful lodgings.
I acquiesced and with a quick smile, said, “I’ll be back in a few.”
I left and thought about walking down to bar to catch a game and a few brews when my cell phone rang. It was her.
“I have to catch a red eye out tonight, but I will still be in town for a few hours,” she explained. “Can we get together at your hotel for those hours?” she asked hopefully.
I explained the situation to her. I was about to tell her I could always go rent a room in another motel when she said, “Why don’t you just come over to my place?”
I had been wondering why I had never been there before this, but I had filed it in my do-not-think-about-it-too-hard box and quit wondering.
She went on to explain she had some ongoing legal problems and did not want the nosy neighbors talking too much.
“Could you just leave your car at the park a few blocks away?” she asked. “I would pick you up, and take you back, I promise,” she went on with a throaty coo.
Remember she had me back at that curvaceous body and knowing what a change up pitch was.
I found the park, and had only been there a few minutes when she pulled in driving a 700 series Beamer with darkly tinted windows. I hopped in and we drove the few blocks to her place. It was a very modern affair reminiscence of the ranch style of the middle of the twentieth century. It seemed to ramble on forever. We drove around back and parked next to the pool. We entered through a door that went from the patio directly into her bedroom.
“Nice digs,” I said rather cleverly.
She just grinned, sat on the edge of the bed, and crooked her finger at me.
As we laid there smoking our cigarettes, I was still feeling smug and contented. Off in the distance was the rumbling of a finely tuned sports car navigating the curves and hills of the heavily wooded road that ran in front of her house. I realized that she had perked her ears up. I saw her rotate her head so that her left ear was pointed at the direction of the sound. She seemed a little agitated and as the sound the car grew stronger so did her agitation. Her agitation transferred across the bed into me as apprehension.
When it was obvious the driver of the car was downshifting to slow down, her agitation transformed into fright and action. “It’s my husband,” she hurled at me, “you have got to get out of here, now.”
“Husband,” I hurled back at her, “husband, you never t told me anything about being married.”
“You’ve got to get out of here,” she went on, ignoring my comment.
She was gathering up my clothes and pushing them deep into my chest, apparently trying to make them disappear anyway she could. “You have got to go now. He will kill us both.”
“There is a gate in the back fence that leads to the service alleyway,” she went with a pleading tone. The sound of her voice was no longer throaty and alluring.
“You have to go now, hurry,” she pleaded one last time.
As I ran across the backyard attempting to put on items of clothing, I realized the truth of the story she had told me about leaving my car at the park a few blocks away. It had nothing to do with what the neighbors would think. Somehow for the past several weeks I had just accepted all the pretenses, all the strange hours, quick meetings without question.
Man what a dolt, I thought, man, can you delude yourself with the best of them.
Deluded me argued back, but the sex was so good why would I question minor details like that?
Moron, you are just a moron, I concluded.
I had arrived at the back gate. I stopped to pull my pants on thinking I would slip my shoes on once I went through the gate. As I passed through I was congratulating myself for leaving my watch on. I would have just left it on the night stand for sure. It would have been bad business all around.
So engaged in my thoughts I was that I missed remainder of a post just outside the gate. It had been sawed off to within a couple inches of the ground. There was just enough of the post left there for me to stub the big toe of my left foot really hard. I wanted to say unseemly words very loudly, but feared to do so
I managed to make it back to my car. Before I returned to the hotel I stopped by a liquor store and picked up a bottle of Patron. I needed a painkiller for my toe and my emotions. As I was attempting to enter my recently cleaned room at the Hotel Generica, I dropped the bottle of tequila on to the same toe. I do remember thinking as I watched the flavorful fermentation of 100% pure agave seep into the hallucinogenic pattern of the hotel carpeting, some day, huh?
Coming out of my thoughts I remembered his question. “Since you asked, I have what the doctor termed a fracture of the distal portion of the metatarsus of the left hallux,” I cheerfully said, “I am chalking it up to the evils of drink.”