thunderthighs seeks the advice and counsel of franksolich

[franksolich]

Note: this is dedicated to the thunderthighs primitive, with the hopes that humor will help get her through her current marital difficulties, leading her on to a better life.

thunderthighs seeks the advice and counsel of franksolich.  “I want to talk to you,” she said, shaking my shoulder as to waken me.  “I need to talk to you.”

What a surprise, thunderthighs coming to seek solace from franksolich in the middle of the night.

Okay, I mumbled, still half-asleep.  “What’s up?”

“I had to ditch flubby hubby,” she said, “because he was getting intolerable—“

“Well, congratulations, about time,” I interrupted.  “The sleazebag was never good for you anyway, and really, you should’ve ditched him even before you hitched him.

“He never respected you, and only used you as a meal-ticket, and as an excuse for not having to face his own problems.  You know he was always doing that, and everybody else saw it, when he’d go nuts, and instead of disciplining himself to be sane again, he’d just let you take care of things so he wouldn’t have to get well.

“And you took care of them all right, to where he had things pretty damned good, more so than most freeloading male primitives looking for a free ride.

“So…..he’s gone now.  What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” thunderthighs admitted.

“Well, you should take the advice of your old man,” I counseled her, “and try to figure out what attracts you to deadweights who only use and misuse you, don’t respect you.

“Okay, that’s my two cents,” I said.  “Can I go back to sleep now?”

I expected her to leave, but instead she stood up and pulled the bed-sheet off of me.

“Oh now, look what you did,” I complained; “you knew that underneath the sheet I didn’t have anything on, and now I’m exposed bare assed naked.”

“Well, it’s not as if I haven’t seen you naked before,” she insisted, “so there’s no need to be embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” I said; “it’s just that you’re going to expect some action, and I don’t feel up to giving you any action.

“The heart attack, remember; I have to be careful about hopping around in the sack, lest I do it too much and end up hopping into a casket.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

She started undoing her top, insisting, “Well, that looks to me as if you’re ready.”

“No, that’s not what you think it is,” I said; “I just woke up—or rather, you just woke me up—and it’s a normal thing to stretch the arms, the shoulders, the legs, the jaws—yawning--and other parts, to see that everything’s still in good working order.”

And so as to demonstrate my point, it suddenly went limp.  She looked disappointed, but oh well.

Actually, there had been a time when I would’ve been ready for thunderthighs any time and right away, but that when she was svelte and petite, before she began drinking like a fish and smoking dope 24/7/365.  When a woman’s thighs and hips start getting broader than mine, it diminishes my carnality; I don’t get turned on nearly as much.

And too there was the matter of flubby hubby; I had no idea how long it’d been since he’d been inside her, and unless it’d been a very long time ago, I wasn’t up for any action.

I’ve never minded following another guy of cleanliness, character, and good breeding into a woman, but if what in a kinder-and-gentler age used to be called “trailer court trash” had been in there before, well, I have some qualms.  My hair stood on end when I thought about flubby hubby leaving some drool, or worse, in her, and it’d rub off on me.

Gaaaaah…..

It was true that thunderthighs still had some aestheticity that could cause a man to lust, mostly in that her cantaloupe-sized jugs were still firm and solid and stood out instead of sagging, but that was about it.

The sun wasn’t nearly all the way up yet, but already it looked to be another torridly hot sweltering blistering Sandhills summer day, which itself dampened my ardor considerably.

“Okay,” I finally said; “I’ll have to think about helping you get your life on track, but until then, let’s have some breakfast, and then we’ll go to [the big city] and spend the day in an air-conditioned motel room.”

to be continued

[I_B_Perky]

Now that was good, Frank!!!  Can't hardly wait for the next installment.

H5!

[franksolich]

“Well, I don’t understand why we didn’t just stay at your place, rather than going to a motel room in [the big city],” thunderthighs whined as we hit the road.  I had her drive, because she can drive and hear at the same time, while I can do only one or the other, drive or “hear,” at the same time.

“As I told you,” I patiently explained, “it’s hot, it’s miserable, it’s wretched—“

“But you’ve got the river and all those shade trees,” she interrupted.  “It’s more fun being outdoors rather than cooped up listening to an air-conditioner hum.”

“As I told you,” I patiently explained, “there’s going to be people running around all over the place all day long, into night-time.  You’ve got [the property caretaker] and Joe Rodriguez and Jose Martinez knocking down dead trees and clearing them away, the neighbors—and their kids—will be getting together for a swim and a picnic, and probably there’ll be some old hippies showing up to camp, and of course by 10 p.m. anybody who’s adult and male out there’s going to be well on the road to drunkery.

“It’s important that you get your head screwed on right, and it ain’t gonna happen if there’s so many other people around.”

“But in a closed-up motel room—“

“In a motel room—a suite, actually—in northeastern Nebraska’s largest five-star—rated by those people over in France—hotel.  It makes Grossinger’s in the Catskills look like a Budget 6 motel by comparison.  It puts the innkeeping amenities in places such as Connecticut or Maryland to shame.

“I’ll bet even Atman or the sparkling old dude, no matter how much they pay for something, don’t get a professional foot-massage when the Omaha World-Herald’s delivered in the morning.

“Look,” I said, leaning closer to her as she drove, “you’ve really got to have a change, a disruption, a convulsion, in your daily life and routine if you hope to get better, if you hope to get your head screwed on right so you don’t fall for shiftless freeloading men again.

“I’ve always found that a convulsive experience usually changes a life.”

“Well, I’m so used to you,” thunderthighs insisted, “that no matter how wild and crazy you get, it’s no more than a mild discombobulation.  Once one’s used to you, you don’t upset any more; in fact, you can get rather boring, doing what’d be wicked or offensive or outrageous in another person.”

“Such as—“ I interrupted.

“Such as when you—“ she replied.

“Forget it; I don’t want to hear it,” I said, interrupting again.

“And besides,” I illuminated her, “while we’re getting away from the mob that’ll congregate at my place, it doesn’t mean we’re getting away from other people, period.

“For example, I happen to know that Big Bertha and her ‘husband’ are staying in [the big city] too, although I doubt their good friend Marc, the DFW primitive, gave them enough dough to rent where we’ll be staying, on their way moving from Maryland to California.

“If they’re stuck in a Budget 6 motel somewhere, I’m sure I can convince them to shack up with us instead.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Upon reaching the outskirts of the big city—our luxury motel was near the Country Club, way over on the other side—I had thunderthighs stop at every motel on the road.  I’d get out of the car, go into the office, come out shaking my head, and get into the car again, after which she’d drive to the next one.

“What’s going on?” she asked after the third stop.

“I’m trying to find where Big Bertha and her ‘husband’ are staying, if they’re registered anywhere,” I explained.

thunderthighs looked at me as if I were Bozo from Outer Space.

“You mean to have me stop at every single motel in the city, until you locate them?” she asked.

“I can think of a simpler and quicker way to do this.  Like, maybe the telephone?”

I looked at her as if she were Bozo from Outer Space.

“Like, I can use a telephone?”

She ruminated upon that, finally admitting, “You’re right.

“But it sure seems it takes a lot of time and running around, going in person to every place—“

I looked at her as one might look at a child who exasperates too much.  “What choice do I have?” I asked.  “Information that hearing people pick up by merely dialing the telephone, I have to don the hiking boots and go from place-to-place, to find someone or something, because I have to ask face-to-face, in person.

“What takes you ten seconds to learn something by telephone can take me as much as ten hours by shoe-leather.  And there’s no help for it, unless I can persuade a hearing person to make telephone calls for me.  Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t, and even when I can, the hearing person acts as if it’s such a B-I-G imposition, such an onerous burden…..and so I don’t bother asking it very often.

“Ask me why, despite my great age, I’m still in shape, fit and trim; it’s because I’ve spent my whole life dashing to-and-fro, here-and-there, to retrieve people and information that other people simply reel in with their mouth and ears.

“All that exercise does wonders for the body, especially the thighs, keeping them smooth, firm, and the right size.

“But I thank God we’re not looking for Big Bertha and her ‘husband’ in a big city larger than 22,000 people and fifty-two hotels and motels and nine camping grounds.

“Think what trying to find them in New York City would be like; it’d never happen.”

After she pulled up to the fourth motel, but before I got out of the car, I stopped, thinking perhaps I might’ve been sounding too self-pitying, too primitivesque.  “It does have its advantages,” I reminded her, “having to look for things in person.

“For example, simply by random chance or accident, by merely being out-and-about, one might meet an interesting stranger, and maybe one that could change one’s life.”

to be continued

 

[franksolich]

I went inside the fourth motel, and saw someone I recognized; just in case I might need him for some reason to help me work thunderthighs through her problems, I thought it politic to greet him and engage in some pleasant banter.

I had no idea what I was to do with thunderthighs, no plan, no scheme, no strategy other than a vague notion that it’d probably be a good idea to have as many, and as many different, people as possible on hand, so as to have a broad range of options as soon as things got going.

That’s the way I’ve always been in real life; I suspect it’s because I was the seventh child out of eight, so far down the rungs of the ladder that whatever I thought, whatever I wanted, didn’t count.  I was destined simply to take whatever I was given and make do with that.

And actually, it hasn’t been a bad life, doing that.

The only thing for sure was that I had no intention of venturing into her, as I had no idea how long it’d been since flubby hubby and she’d been intimate, and there still might be microscopic traces of himself in there.  Ewwwww.

This particular motel was a little better than most; not up to the standards of the one near the Country Club, where I‘d reserved a room for thunderthighs and myself…..and anyone else who was along…..but several levels above a Budget 6 motel.

While I was talking to the guy, my eye caught the sight of a woman who looked vaguely familiar.  She was of African derivation, a short, tiny, pert cute little thing who couldn’t hurt a flea. 

However, she furtively moved around as if trying to avoid a pursuer invisible to everybody but her, a haunted look in her eyes.

It wouldn’t have been decent to cut short my conversation, although I tried to hurry it along so we’d get done and I could go talk with her, find out who she was.  But by the time he and I were done, she’d disappeared.

Thinking I’d remember who she was if I saw a name, I went to the desk and asked the clerk for the guest register.  He obligingly shoved the book over to me.  On the second page, about seven-tenths of the way down, I saw the name, and that she was in [the big city] for the next three days.

bravenak was here.

to be continued

[franksolich]

It was at the eleventh motel that a clerk, upon hearing a description of Big Bertha, thought she might be staying there—“I’ll have to check, but it sure sounds like her.

“She’s a big ‘un all right, a really big ‘un,” he assured me, cupping his hands several inches from his chest so as to illustrate how big she really was.

“Ma-hama mia, she was a big ‘un,” he repeated.

Oh no, I thought; he’s confused Big Bertha with Jugs.

“Her partner, what’d she look like?” I asked, to narrow it down.  “Big but not quite as big, maybe?”

“Oh no,” he said; “he was a guy, her partner with her.

So others standing nearby couldn’t hear, he whispered, “But to be honest, I didn’t like him; there’s something malevolent, sinister about him despite that he looks absolutely normal.  For whatever reasons—subconscious clues, perhaps—he radiated the aura of a bomb-throwing Trotskyite terrorist, an assassin, a nihilist.”

Well, that wasn’t Big Bertha, I thought.

“Here, lemme see if I can find the name of the big ‘un,” the helpful clerk insisted, scanning the names on the guest register, his finger pausing at one name on the fourth page.

I looked.

It was Big Mo and Skippy.

Oh well, I said; “Close, but no banana.”

I gave him thunderthighs’ cellular telephone number, asking him to call if Big Bertha and her “husband” showed up, and then she and I went out again, this time to find a coffee shoppe.

thunderthighs had showed up at my place about 4:00 a.m., having spent the night driving from north of Denver to here.  We’d had breakfast at my place, after which we’d taken off for [the big city], where I’d been checking motels since then.

It seemed as if we’d spent a whole day already, but incredibly, it wasn’t even 10:00 a.m. yet, and because of my constant exertions, I needed something light to drink.  thunderthighs and I found a coffee shoppe, went in, were seated, and ordered.

After being served, she commented to me, “That waitress was awfully familiar with you, the way she bent way over you, nuzzling you on the back of your jaw and running her fingers along the bottom part of your stomach.  Do you know her?”

No, I admitted, I didn’t know her, but wish I did, given her aesthetics. 

“We have however met before,” I added.

“It was at my place a couple of years ago, when at 11:00 at night, she showed up drunk and lost, trying to find a party that was going on at the other end of the county.

“You know of course that anyone showing up at my place between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., no matter who they are, friend or stranger, friend or foe, is greeted and treated with the utmost of decorum and courtesy.

“But after ten, I’m tired, worn out, from dealing with people all day long, and want to be left alone.

“And usually I am, because I live way out in the middle of nowhere, and associate only with decent and civilized people who’re themselves in bed by that hour.

“But once in a while—actually, more than I’d like to admit—someone shows up during the middle of the night, and as the door’s always unlocked, they just walk in.  The door’s always unlocked because, again, since I live out in the middle of nowhere and if someone needs help, I’m it, and I’d better be accessible.

“I’m not going to hear someone banging on the door or tapping on a window, or standing out there yelling for me.  I’d feel really lousy if one day I were to find a corpse out in the front yard, the corpse of someone seeking shelter in a raging blizzard or relief from the burning Sandhills sun, who tried to catch my attention, but couldn’t because I didn’t hear him.

“And of course if I’m sleeping, I’m not going to see any warning light blinking.

“So best to just leave the front door unlocked, and let enter anyone who wants in.

“Being a man, nobody’s going to mess with me anyway.

“it just happens, as it did in the case of our waitress a couple of years ago, that I’m bending over the counter in the kitchen, making coffee after waking up from sleep, unaware that somebody else is inside the house, and suddenly there’s a tap on my shoulder.

“One doesn’t care much for being caught naked, but one gets used to it.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

When it began getting towards noon, even though I’d canvassed only about half the motels and hotels looking for Big Bertha and her “husband,” since we were finally at that end of the big city, near the Country Club, I told thunderthighs we might as well go and check into our own motel.

But before we got there, while still on the main road, we both spotted a big old 1980s Buick by the side, and two women, one a big one and the other one big but not quite as big, standing by it, looking confused and disheartened.

thunderthighs parked on the side of the road in front of them, and we talked with the stranded and very unhappy pair.  Having lost their jobs back in Maryland, they were on their way to California, where they planned to shack up with Big Bertha’s elderly parents until they could get back on their feet.

The car had suddenly broken down—the transmission had fallen out—and there they were, only halfway to California, 1500 more miles to go, and they had exactly $287 left to get them there.  Big Bertha asked me how much a new transmission would cost, and I groaned.

I really wanted to have a couple of primitives with which to make merry, but here instead were two damsels in distress.  franksolich may be a hard-nosed guy at times, but if a woman’s in trouble, he’s about the best friend she can have, even if she’s only a primitve.

Certain ones excepted, of course, but Big Bertha and her “husband” weren’t on the excluded list.

I suggested the problem was so major—without making it sound as if it was so expensive, too—that they were probably going to have to spend three or four days in this area.  There was the city mission—operated by non-atheists—but while that would house and shield them, it wouldn’t do a thing for their crippled motor vehicle so they could get going on their way again.

I was going to have to send them out to my place, and have their car repaired by my mechanic in town.

Well, they were nervous about that, as they had no idea who or what I was, and for all they knew, I was an axe-murderer on the hunt for victims.  Although really they had nothing to fear out here, I thought their fears reasonable, based upon their experiences living in blue states and blue cities.

Because thunderthighs was a woman—and a primitive too—I thought they’d listen to her, and they did.  She explained who I was, what we were doing, what I was offering—the accommodations back at my place—which reassured them considerably.

I try never to show it, but I always take silent offense at any notion that franksolich intends to do anyone any harm.  It’s nothing that’s ever happened, and besides, I don’t even look the part.  I’ve never in my life, for example, touched a woman who didn’t want to be touched.

And besides, being deaf, franksolich has a great deal more to fear about other people (although I don’t), than other people about franksolich.

Okay, so [the property caretaker], Joe Rodriguez, and Jose Martinez were out at my place, picking up dead trees, and there were other people, probably about twenty or so, men, women, and children, out there swimming and picnicking.  thunderthighs and I wouldn’t be there, but I was pretty sure Big Bertha and her “husband” could find “fun” things to do with all these other people.

I had thunderthighs call [the property caretaker] on her cellular telephone, asking him to send Joe and Jose out with a truck and flatbed trailer, so as to take the big old car into town where Dane, the local mechanic of Norwegian derivation, could work on it.

But I had to think of something else too, because Joe and Jose, while actually nice guys, have appearances of cut-and-scarred thugs and felons, and might make the two women feel ill at ease.  So I asked [the property caretaker] to have the neighbor’s wife drive her own car out here, and take them back.  They all being women who like to gab, I figured it’d be a good fit, she making them feel comfortable about the whole arrangement.

However, Big Bertha was still concerned, wanting to know if a new transmission would run her more than the $287 she had with her.  I told her I didn’t know, but not to worry about it; I’d just have Dane put it on my tab, plus four new tires, fluids change, and a new suspension system, and she could pay me back after they got to California and were on their feet again.

The suspension system badly needed replacement, the two women having ridden in the front seat side-by-side all the way from Maryland.  It was as if they’d transported an upright piano on the front seat.

I can’t help being a nice guy, but it’s always pissed me off that primitives still think franksolich is a jerk, despite all the evidence showing otherwise.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The big city’s 42 miles away from where I live, and so it took Joe, Jose, and the neighbor’s wife about an hour to get there, to retrieve Big Bertha and her “husband,” and their crippled motor vehicle.

The neighbor’s wife had been accompanied by her 13-year-old son, the eager young lad who, after examining Big Bertha from a distance, asked me how he was supposed to treat her.  He was confused because he knew she was a primitive, but on the other hand, he’d seen me treat even primitives with dignity and respect, without understanding why this one but not that one.

I pointed out that Big Bertha was nervous and facing an uncertain future, so best to be nice to her.

He described what was going on back home, that there were now (at the time they left) thirty-four people there, swimming and picnicking, in addition to [the property caretaker], Joe, and Jose clearing away dead trees, and that eleven old hippies had showed up, claiming franksolich had given them the okay to camp on the river over the weekend.

I told him that yeah, sure, I had given the okay, provided they didn’t do child sacrifices or other weird rituals on the property, and was relieved to hear from the eager young lad that they didn’t.  He did say the hippiewomen liked to sun themselves topless, and that they were so old and withered that their jugs resembled nothing more so than gigantic Tootsie Rolls.

My hair stood on end upon hearing this, as I don’t like young children seeing certain sights (of things over which I have no control), but I relaxed after he said he’d seen them through the telescope mounted on a railing on the back porch……500 yards away from the riverside where the hippies were camping.

Joe and Jose winched the crippled old car up onto the trailer, after which all that party turned around and headed back to my place, leaving thunderthighs and I all alone.

There wasn’t anything else to do but head for the motel and check in, but I had no idea what we’d do after that.  I’d hoped to catch Big Bertha and her “husband” under better circumstances, and have them work with thunderthighs on wakening some possible latent longings inside of her, but that of course was no longer an option.

At any cost, I myself was not going to intimately engage with her myself, given that I still didn’t know how long it’d been since flubby hubby had last entered her, and it was possible there was still some sweat or drool on her that he’d left behind.  Yikes.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The problem, as I was seeing it, was that thunderthighs had a problem and wished it’d go away, but then really, she didn’t want it to go away.  Flubby hubby was a burden, a nuisance, and she’d rather not deal with him, but on the other hand, she couldn’t “live without him.”

It would require some really convulsive event to change her attitude about it, but given that Big Bertha and her “husband” were out, I wasn’t seeing any other possible convulsive event. 

bravenak was in town, and perhaps could give thunderthighs some convulsivity, but bravenak was just too sweet, too delicate, too innocent, to use for such a base purpose; I couldn’t live with myself if I put her in the sack with another woman.  Best to leave bravenak alone.

There was Big Mo, who unexpectedly was in town, and big hearty lusty brawling Big Mo would’ve been ideal for convulsing thunderthighs…..excepting that Skippy was with her, and I had absolutely no intention of dealing with the ass who tried to—and failed—destroy my fellow alum Skins and all that he’d built.  Such was my loathing I didn’t even want to breathe the same air as Skippy did.

God, give me inspiration, I prayed.

There’s few things in life more exasperating, more hopeless, than trying to help someone with a problem, who alleges she wants to get rid of it, but really doesn’t; actually all thunderthighs really wanted from me was some good poking, and so I felt as if I was being used.

to be continued

[franksolich]

On our way to the motel, I drove, as it wasn’t necessary for me to drive and “hear” at the same time, which of course I can’t do.  But I can drive and talk at the same time, the idea being that the passenger’s supposed to just sit there and listen.

“You know,” I said to thunderthighs, “I’m wondering if it was worth your while coming all the way up over to here to see me about your, uh, problem, because if it’s what I think it is, there won’t be a damned thing I can do for you. 

“I know I can’t do anything for you because there was a time in my life, years and years ago, that I tried helping other people with a similar problem, dozens and scores of them…..and failed every single time.

“But oddly, despite my long unbroken string of failures, that never stopped people from coming to me, until finally to save myself, I had to sever all connections with a certain international organization.

“But anyway, many local members of this certain international organization thought because I’m deaf, I was idle and lonely with all this free time…..and so as to ‘include’ me, to make me feel ‘wanted,’ they began coming to me with their personal problems.

“They inconveniently forgot I was unable to grasp anything other than a fragment of something here-and-there.  I was a nice guy, one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet, and didn’t like to turn people away even though I couldn’t really do anything for them. 

“And I was born, so I’ve been told, with the acting skills of a Barrymore; even though I’d sit there for hours on end, hearing very little or nothing at all, I gave the appearance of a rapt and attentive listener.  In fact, many people insisted I was the best ‘listener’ they’d ever known.

“It was all an act; I think that out of thousands of hours spent “listening,” all I really heard—all I knew for a certainty what’d been said, in total--was probably oh, about ten minutes of chitchattery.

“Talk about laboring a mountain to bring forth a mouse.

“The very worst ones were the women with man problems. 

“Their man problems were actually easy to solve; all they needed to do was to drop him, to kick the freeloader out of their life, moving on to someone and something new.

“That’s all, ‘bye-bye,’ and kicking him out…..forever.

“I dunno how many women to whom I gave this advice; more than a few dozen, probably several score over four years. 

“And alas, I don’t know of a single woman who ever took it.

“That exasperated me to no end; if someone’s a problem, a bother, a nuisance, for me, I have no problem ejecting that person out of my life.  Just one kick aimed at the seat of the pants, problem solved.

“Finally, I understood.  These women were not the least bit interested in solving their problems with men. 

“All they were interested in doing was complain about it.

“Bah, humbug.”

to be continued

   

[franksolich]

I concluded just as we pulled up to the motel and sat waiting for the doorman under the marquee to summon some bellboys and a valet to take the car and park it.

“You know, there’s always been something about women that’s driven me nuts,” I said to thunderthighs. 

“Tell me, why does a woman feel ‘incomplete,’ a lesser sort of person, unless she’s got a man?

“She’s not 100% of a person on her own?

“Yourself, for example.  You put up with a sleazy squalid loser who doesn’t respect you because you think you need a man to ‘complete’ yourself, to make whole your identity, and you assume that flubby hubby’s about the best for which you can hope—if you lose him, if you toss him out of your life, you’ll be a woman without a man, only a partial human being with no prospects of happiness and fulfillment.

“I get the impression—don’t blame me; I’m only watching how women are—that most women base their self-worth, their happiness, on having a man ‘complete’ them.

“And this in anno domini 2016, more than fifty years after the dawn of women’s liberation.

“When the Hell are women going to be more like men and grow up?”

Well, now I was in the doghouse for sure.

Oh well.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Well, there wasn’t any help for it; I’d made thunderthighs good and mad by being bluntly honest with her.

If one wishes to maintain any sort of cordial relations with a woman—minus those who mean something to one—it’s always a bad idea to be honest with them.

I’d bluntly told thunderthighs that she didn’t really want to solve her problem with flubby hubby, that actually she just liked to whine and gripe and moan and complain about him.

That put me on her [shit] list right away, because it’s true and she knows it’s true.

Then I’d gone further and told her that her old man, her father, was right in commenting that she really needs to figure out why she’s so attached to such a loser…..and I’d bluntly told her it was because she “thinks” she “needs” to have a man to fulfill, to complete, herself as a woman, and as far as she could tell, flubby hubby was the best with which she could come up.

That engraved me on her [shit] list, because it’s true and she knows it’s true.

I’d made myself a formidable enemy, but fortunately thunderthighs is only a primitive, nobody whose feelings I need to be particularly concerned about.  I got the impression I was the first person who ever told her the truth about herself, and damn, it was high time someone did.

Both of us glacially silent, we checked into the motel room.  I’d asked for anything air-conditioned, never mind any other amenities.  Just so there was air-conditioning. 

We were given a suite of two bedrooms, each with two king-sized beds, a sitting room-solarium that overlooked the vast panorama of the Sandhills of Nebraska stretching out endlessly into eternity, and a “kitchenette”-dining room with a table that sat eight.

Plus a lot of other stuff, appliances and somesuch, and personal services such as a seamstress, a valet, a masseuse, a hair-dresser, a manicurist, and a laundrywoman.

It was a nice set-up for the next three days, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it after thunderthighs demanded to take my car and go back to my place (where her own car was), and spend those three days with Big Bertha and “husband,” and the hippies camping on the river.  That was okay with me, as they’re more her sort of people anyway.

And as for my people hanging out at my place, not aware of any difficulties between thunderthighs and myself, they would treat her as I wished her treated (in my absence), courteously and comfortably.

<<<tries to—and usually succeeds in—keeping grudges and other bad feelings private, putting on a “happy face” for the world to see.

So…..there I was, all alone in the big city.

Nothing that had happened thus far surprised or fazed me; rather than formulating some sort of “plan,” I’d just decided to let things happen naturally, by chance, and adapt to them.  So while sitting in a reclining-chair in the solarium reading a book written by a long-ago British “spycatcher,” I waited for things to happen.

to be continued

[franksolich]

About three o’clock in the afternoon, something happened; I looked up from reading the book, and saw the consigliere, the woman who takes care of things for guests, come inside, a perplexed and concerned expression on her face.

“Perhaps you didn’t notice, but you left the door unlocked?” she asked.

Yeah, I did, I told her.  “Excepting of course bathroom doors when I'm inside, I always have to leave doors unlocked—“

She looked at me as if I were Bozo from Outer Space.

“If someone’s with me,” I added, “the door’s kept locked.  But I’m here all alone.”

She continued looking at me as if I were Bozo from Outer Space, so I explained.

“I’m deaf; I wouldn’t hear anybody knocking on the door if it were locked and they couldn’t get in.

“And there might be some urgent need for them to get a hold of me.

“And yes, it has happened that it was a damned good thing I’d left a door unlocked, and was accessible.”

“But it’s dangerous,” she insisted; “the door unlocked, anybody can walk inside, including people with less than good motives—“

“That’s a chance I have to take,” I interrupted, “and I’ve had to take it all my life.  Fortunately, I’m a man, and nobody messes with a man.  If I were a woman and deaf, I’d have no idea, no idea at all, what I could do, to protect myself while at the same time being accessible to others.

“If someone’s with me, the door’s locked, because that someone’s a hearing person, and could hear someone knocking on the door.

“But alas because I was only hours ago compelled to be bluntly honest with someone who needed to hear the truth, I’m now here all alone.”

“Well, be careful,” she advised.  “This of course is a high-class place, but one never knows for sure what people are.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

About 5:00 p.m., I decided to go downstairs to dine; there were four options at the motel, and of course the Country Club next door.  But as I hadn’t thought to bring along any formal clothes, my choice was restricted to just one, the coffee shoppe near the front desk.

Although only a coffee shoppe, the Michelin Guide people had given it three stars, mostly because of its selection and quality of French dessert pastries, although as for myself personally I dislike too-sweet things.

I was seated, and ordered my usual, a hamburger well done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, French fries cooked on the grill and not in the fryer, a side dish of sour cream, and of course coffee.

While waiting, I surveyed the half-darkened room, and noticed a woman at another table trying to get my attention. 

I took notice, because even though she was at least forty years old, this was no ordinary woman, grace and class and elegance and good breeding oozing out of her pores; the sort of woman one’s always happy to be seen with.

"Pourquoi ne venez-vous pas assis avec moi?" she mouthed.

I arched my eyebrows, and went over.

"Connaissez-vous le français?" she asked.

No, I didn’t, I replied; I could sort of understand it if spoken to me, or written down, but as for doing it myself, no.  Also, a lot of other languages.

But don’t expect me to speak them or write them, I said.

"Pourquoi est-il de cette façon?" she asked.

I dunno, I replied ; "I think it has to do with deafness; there’s all sorts of perceptual difficulties involved with deafness.  One of them is that while we ‘absorb,’ we can’t seem to ‘emit.’  We’re able to take something in and understand it, but because we’re at a loss when it comes to articulation, don’t expect us to explain.

"I’m pretty sure I know, and fully understand, how Fermat’s Theorem of Mathematics works, but as for me telling you how it works, forget it.  The same with languages foreign to me.

"We’re like sponges that can’t be squeezed out.

"Why, I have no idea, but there you have it, there it is."

"Ce qui est très triste," she said, "mais vous semblez une personne très heureuse néanmoins."

"Merci," I replied.

She looked me up and down.  "Je trouve les hommes dans le Nebraska pour être très beau."

"Merci," I replied.

"La nuit dernière, j'étais avec quelqu'un comme vous, sur le côté éloigné des Sandhills, à sa baronnie du bétai—"

"Ah yes,» I said; "you were visiting dutch508."

"Oui, oui; un homme plus remarquable, dutch508.

"Illuminer moi, s'il vous plaît; sont tous des hommes du Nebraska bon au lit?"

As far as I know, yes, I assured her.

"Puis-je savoir pour moi-même?" she asked.

"But not tonight," I said; "I have a headache, but I’m here for three days."

to be continued