Chapter 4
WHEN I ASKED BEANIE for a refill of my coffee, he brought the pot over. He lowered his voice to say, “I’m only supposed to refill you with a food order.” Cute. There was nobody out here to hear him but me.
I watched the traffic some more. I’d have to find a payphone. Call my friend Jamie in Tucson. Listen to her saying, “I’m not going to say I told you so…” But then what, ask her to drive out here, Oh, and could you bring some money, please? Else, what? Call Daddy? Fuck. NO way.
Then Beanie said, “I got an order of scrambled with a stack.” He was by the side of my table again, “I must have got it wrong but it’s going begging. Don’t suppose you’d like them, would you? They ain’t going nowhere else.” I looked up at Beanie. I thought, There’s nobody here but me, Beanie. Who could they have been for?
I told him, “I’m too old for you, Beanie.”
He looked me over, slowly, “Oh, no, ma’am.” He grinned, “No, you’re really not.” So innocent.
“See?” I said, “You don’t know what I mean when I say that I’m too old for you. You think that I’m talking about the difference in our ages.” I watched the clouds drift over his pretty face. “I mean that I would burn you up.”
There was a sigh under his voice as he left, “You have no idea how much I’d like that, ma’am.”
I thought, Oh, Beanie, I really do. I know how much you think you’d love it. And I know what it could really do to you.
I swallowed my pride and gratefully scarfed down the eggs, waffles and bacon with hash browns on the side. Nothing ever cheers me up quite like diner food.
While I ate, the black Harley crackled by again, going the other way. Slower this time. And the rider looked into the diner window with more attention.
I thought about Beanie. About the wiry weight of him. Sinew flowing, slow like lava. He moved like a dancer. All that young muscle, toned and supple and his lightly bronzed caramel skin. I watched the flashes of his athlete’s girdle, the iliac furrow. Aphrodite’s handles. They’re a real trigger for me, those two little clefts. Pointing the way.
His tats. I thought about how they would roll and undulate as they slid over his muscles. How his muscles would clench and flex.
The eager light in his pale blue eyes. A little furrow pulled his short, neat eyebrows together. His lips, stretching back and tightening over his strong, white teeth. The sounds he would make. I thought of the bright light in his eyes. It looked like innocence to me, but I was sure it was something else.
Inside my short denim skirt, I was getting pretty hot. My little sheer panties felt too tight. Too hot. I was distracted. And way too wet. My hips tilted and I shifted in my seat.
All of this longing came on so fast. Was it the shock of being alone again, alone and single, or was it just the pent-up passions inside me that I hadn’t been connecting with the past few months?
I guess that’s a defense mechanism of mine. While I was imagining the flowing ridges of that boy’s shoulders and his thickening, hardening, reddening neck as his back might roll, with my nails maybe scraping down it, all that kept my mind distracted and away from panicking about my situation.
Nothing had come to me that I could add to my two bad ideas yet. If something didn’t show up soon, I would have to act on one of them.