continued
When the sun rose in the morning, streaming through all the windows, the stranger on the couch was awakened by a slight clatter coming out of the kitchen; his host was apparently making coffee.
The stranger sat up and looked out at the vast panorama before him, the Sandhills in all their summer glory, as seen through the seven large picture-windows there, and in the dining room adjacent.
When he went into the kitchen, his host had disappeared.
After pouring himself a cup of coffee, the stranger decided he must’ve gone through the open door to the back porch, and went that way himself.
The stranger stopped in his tracks.
His host was leaning over, a lighted cigarette in hand, peering through a telescope mounted on the railing at the river beyond, his cup of coffee on a table nearby.
Sensing his presence, his host turned around and stood up straight, commenting, “there’s always people camping down there, on this property, and although I knew they were coming, I didn’t check on these last night.â€
Brushing his hair aside so as to remind the stranger he had no ears, he sighed, “there’s a lake some miles over the other way, and some riverside public camping areas along the highway, but no, they
must camp here, where state laws forbidding alcohol and drugs aren’t in force.â€
As his host turned to pick up the cup of coffee, muttering under his breath about “damned primitives,†the stranger continued staring.
His host absent-mindedly paced around the porch.
“Well, either I could make breakfast for you if you want, or you can make your own breakfast, or I could buy you breakfast in town,†his host said. “Also, I’ll pay to fill your gasoline tank when we’re in town, so as to help you along. And as for breakfast, I prefer it to have it there—quicker, easier, and one doesn’t mess up the kitchen—but you’re the guest.
“Whatever you want, you get.â€
His host leaned against the railing of the porch, and continued, “and since you’re headed that way anyway, probably by mid-afternoon you could be at dutch508’s place on the western slope of the Sandhills, and I’m sure he’d be happy to put you up for the night--you’d save on a motel bill, and for both supper this evening and breakfast tomorrow morning; dutch508 sets a good table.
“In fact, I’m rather confident dutch508 could show you a time you wouldn’t forget.
“Well, what do you think?†his host continued.
“Breakfast here or in town, your heading west on a full tank, stopping at dutch508’s digs for the night, would that work? It’d save you some of your rapidly-depleting funds.â€
The stranger was thinking, but not about any travel plans; there was happening a recrudescence of his long-ago adolescent confusion he thought he’d gotten rid of a long time ago, by marrying a woman.
Well, that had been
some fun while it lasted, but it had lasted less and less over the years, as she found herself being turned off by his “me-me-me-me-me†self-worship.
Oh well, she was turning into a wrinkled old bore anyway, and he wanted something new.
And now, here they were, alone together out in the middle of nowhere, his host vulnerable, indifferent, and perhaps…..even willing; he didn’t look the sort who’d put up a fight.
He sidled closer to his host, noticing that he was mildly redolent of Preferred Stock cologne.
His host pulled back, almost recoiling. “Whoa, dude, that’s a little too near.â€
The stranger stepped back to size up the situation. His host didn’t seem one who liked sudden surprises, instead preferring to be slowly won over. A wrong move might turn him off.
He’d met such people before; teases who demanded some working over before they put out. The old “playing hard to get†game. After all, he hadn’t always been middle-aged and flabby, and had bedded half a dozen or so in his long-ago youth.
This guy was provocative, seductive, in ways he apparently wasn’t aware; only a faraway aloof indifference governing him. He was so clean, so lean, so…..vulnerable.
On the inside, the stranger was working himself up into a frothing frenzy.
His host, standing against the porch railing, his arms crossed on his chest, looked as if he were watching a penguin suddenly gone spastic.
The stranger lunged forward, with the hopes of grabbing his head and kissing him. His host pushed him away with the force of a single-thrust jack-hammer in the midriff just before their faces touched, gazing in stunned wonderment at the stranger. His grey eyes were dull and vacant, as if seeing something else that was not this.
“Whoa,†his host said, as he walked away. “I suppose this decides the issue; we’ll have breakfast in town instead of out here. Don’t take it personally, dude, but you’re not my type.â€
finis
