The Pickup Line

by Louisa Trent

  Thirteen months, three weeks, two days, twenty-two-odd hours, without. But who was counting?

  Lou was. After dropping his only child off at his college dorm last week, he started the countdown. It was his turn to concentrate on his own hurting ‘nads for a change, instead of always worrying over whether Pete was doing the right thing by Mary. Or Sue. Or Wendy Lou. Or whichever girl his son was currently seeing that week. The end of his abstinence was in sight. But damn! He didn't want it ended while waiting in a damn takeout express. At the very least he wanted to get his pants unzipped first. Why wouldn't the damn line move?

  “Everything is made to order at Sprout's,” Lou said, trying a new small talk angle. “That's why I always call ahead.”

  “I wish I had known. I'm new in town,” she explained.

  “Really? So-how long you staying?”

  “Three more days. I've worked non-stop until tonight, so I haven't had the chance to see any of the sights.”

  “Oh? Oh! I could ... maybe ... you know ... if you're not busy or anything ... show you around. Except for a stint in the navy, I've lived here all of my life.”

  “How perfectly sweet! And yes, thank you, I'd like you to show me around town. It was only accidentally that I wandered into Sprouts tonight. Good thing I have an adventurous nature or I might not have. I might have gone to a chain restaurant instead.”

  Her bottom cuddled unmistakably closer to his dick. “By the way, is a woman with an adventurous nature okay with you, Lou?”

  He thought maybe that was an invitation, so he R.S.V.P'd by speaking low to her ear. “How adventurous are we talking?”

  “Here, let me show you.”

  Taking his hand from where it was fisted at his side, she detoured it under her loose shirt.

  “The good thing about crowds, Lou, is there's not enough space between jammed bodies to see what's going on, and generally speaking, no one pays too much attention to what anyone else is doing. Makes for a kind of public privacy.”

  “I don't think-”

  “Relax, Lou,” she instructed. “Don't think. Let's go where the mood takes us.”

  Taking a flying leap into nothingness, no net down below to catch him should he happen to trip, his fingers straightened, digit by digit, until all five pads rested on Blue's breast, the one with the pierced nipple.

  Lou could've wept. When had he last felt such softness, a woman's velvety softness? So long. Too long! He was all choked up with ... well ... romantic feelings, he guessed you could call ‘em.

  “You feel good, Blue. Real good,” he managed to say.

  Her breast was round and firm, the nipple hard and pointing; her bottom was giving. He only trembled a little, only from head to foot, with a lot of other stuff going on in between. Luckily, it was all on the inside so his shaking didn't show.

  “Let's make it easier, shall we?” Blue said.

  Not even looking around to see who was watching, she worked one button, then two, until her raspberry-toned nipple, gold ring shining, stuck out though the gaping edges of the shirt.

  “Hey, hold on. Cover up with the menu,” he growled, taking the folded laminated sheet from her grip and doing it for her. Blue was for his eyes only.

  Undercover, while her giving bottom wriggled against his erection, his hand worshipped her silky flesh.

  “Oh, yes.” Her voice was a sigh. “Oh, yes.” Elegant throat arching, she rested her head back against his shoulder. “Oh, yes, yes, yes.”

  Lou thought maybe she liked it. She sounded like she liked it, anyway. And she looked like she liked it too. Her responsiveness triggered a reciprocating recklessness in him. But when he realized what he wanted to do, which was to push his free hand down the front of her loose-fitting trousers, he stepped back.

  Things were getting a little too wild.

  “Button up,” he said. “Call your order in now. By the time we get to the end of the line, the cook will have it ready and we can leave.”

  Although, who cared about food? Not him. Food was the last thing on his mind. But Blue might be hungry...

  After pulling her shirt closed, she patted her multitudinous pockets. “Oh, dear. I'm afraid I left my cell back at work-”

  He reached into his jacket, pulled out his only connection to Pete, and handed it over. “Here, use mine.”

  “Thank you,” she said, but distractedly, and still looking at the menu.

  “You want the number?” he asked, trying to speed things up.

  “You have it committed to memory?”

  “I should. I call it every Friday night.” He recited the digits.

  Damn. Now she'd probably make a wisecrack, something about him needing to get a life. Which was the truth. He did need to get a life.

  But Blue didn't say anything; she just punched in the numbers.

  After a full minute of listening to the ring, Lou excused himself from Blue and approached the takeout counter.

  Sprout's was a popular spot and with popularity comes attitude and sometimes that attitude needs some adjusting. Someone needed to give a heads-up to the waitperson-Pete had taught him PC speak, now from person hole to A-hole, Lou was strictly gender neutral-and it looked like that someone was him.

  At the counter, Lou waited. And waited some more.

  When the waitperson, the burly one wearing the green ‘Vegan Pride’ ribbon on his shirt, didn't look up, Lou said, “Excuse me".

  “Get back in line, mac,” was the waitperson's surly reply, still not looking up.

  This is what Lou meant by attitude. The waitperson's attitude was rude. There was no call for rudeness. The waitperson needed to be shown the error of his ways. Rude needed a polite adjustment.

  “No, I won't get back in line. And the name's sir, not mac.”

  Going a mottled shade of turnip purple, the waitperson glanced in his direction.

  Now that he had the rutabaga's attention, Lou passed on some friendly advice, free of charge. “Believe me, pal, I know how it goes. You're having a tough day. You probably had a fight last night with your girlfriend because she slept with your best friend. Again. Then driving into work this morning you got the one finger salute from some jerk just because you cut him off going through red. You hate your lousy, go-nowhere job, your meaningless life, your expanding forehead, your shrinking dick. Big deal. At any given moment, someone in the world is gonna be pissed about something, and takeout lines still have to keep moving. That's just the way life is. Suck it up and do what you're getting paid poorly to do.”

  Then, leaning into the counter, Lou said softly, no threat, no intimidation, just a friendly question, one oppressed slob in the universe to another oppressed slob in the universe, “So-you gonna answer the damn phone or what?”

  The damn phone got answered.

  Everybody behind him gave a cheer.

  Great, Lou thought. Just what I need. Now I'll have to leave a ten-buck guilt tip because of making the rutabaga lose his purple face-

  Meanwhile, back in line, Blue still had the cell pressed to her ear.

  “Do you believe it?” she said, shaking her head. “He put me on hold.”

  That was it! The last straw. The end of his patience. Forget the guilt tip, Lou was killing the rutabaga. And it wouldn't even be homicide, more like vegicide.

  Once again, Lou excused himself with Blue and approached the counter.

  After whispering a few sweet nothings in the rutabaga's ear-something about him violating the restaurant's no-blood spill policy if a certain waitperson didn't haul his proud vegan butt and get the line moving-like magic, a takeout bag was shoved in his arms.

  “Blue,” Lou said, upon his return to the line, “how do you feel about faux burgers?”

  “I love a good faux burger. Not as much as I love sex, but then nothing comes close to good sex. You offering me one or both?” she asked, no pretense, no games, everything right out in the open. Honest.

  The thing about full-blown arousal is that it tends to stiffen ot
her things beside the obvious, which was why he couldn't smile; his muscles were just too tight.

  “Both. I'm offering you both,” he repeated, just to make sure she understood. Then, before his luck went bad, Lou placed his hand under Blue's elbow and escorted her out the trendy art deco door into the night.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ordinarily, Blue didn't go around accepting offers of veggie-burgers and sex from men she'd only just met, especially not from conservative-looking businessman like Lou Franco, but there was just something about him...

  When determining whether a stranger has the makings of an ax murderer or the potential to be a friend, she always went by her instincts. Her instincts told her that the man of the sad expression and soulful brown eyes was safe. Not harmless, mind you. Safe. And there was a distinct difference.

  There was the safe male. Him, you could take your clothes off in front of and he wouldn't jump your bones until given the go ahead.

  Then, there was the harmless male. Him, you could also take your clothes off in front of, but what was the point?

  Right off the bat, she knew Lou was the former.

  She was close to her family, and Lou's exasperated affection for his son came through loud and clear and put her right at ease. The world could be a big, bad, scary place at times and a woman has to protect herself, while still leaving herself open to possibilities.

  Lou was one of those possibilities.

  “You weren't lying, were you, when you said you jog three times a week,” she said, huffing and puffing as she ran beside Lou, this safe stranger she'd just picked up.

  “Oh! Sorry.”

  He slowed right down. No veiled insults about her being out of shape. No humorous, yet bitingly hurtful sarcasm. No poorly disguised condescension. No quasi-hidden male on female patronization, at least none that she could detect. She didn't put up with any of that passive-aggressive shit. Just say what's on your mind, let the chips fall where they may, and fuck ‘em if they can't take a joke, that was her motto.

  Lou looked over at her, a thoughtful expression on his world-weary face.

  He wasn't a kid anymore and he had the character lines to prove it. His life-marked features were interesting, even sexy...

  Especially his mouth. His lips were firm and kind, with deep laugh brackets cut on either side. Lou was sexy, all right, in a tame and soft-spoken sort of way.

  And-not to be crude, but from standing in front of him in line and becoming intimately acquainted with the lower regions of his body, that gorgeous thick bulge to be precise, she knew Lou not only satisfied her safe criteria, he also came equipped with a lovely large penis. If there was one thing she was an authority on, it was the male accouterment. Never should the appeal of a huge dong to the discerning woman be underestimated.

  She was a discerning woman.

  And Lou, evidently, was an extraordinarily careful man.

  On a thirty-second delay while he mulled over his response to a previous question, a question she'd forgotten she'd asked in the time lag, he said, “No.”

  She laughed. “No? No, what, Lou?”

  “No, I didn't lie about jogging. I don't lie.”

  “Never?” she asked as they walked briskly now-actually, more a hurried speed-walk, both with sex on their minds-through Sprout's parking lot. “Not even social lies?”

  Another prolonged pause.

  Jeez, Lou must work as a CPA, or some other detail-oriented occupation.

  “No,” he said slowly, weighing each word of the reply, “I just don't.”

  “Then tell me, honest Lou,” she said, her long-legged stride putting less of a catch in her voice now that they weren't running a marathon. “What's a non-vegetarian guy like you doing with a vegi-burger? Could it be that you've seen the light and you're just not owning up to it?”

  “Nope. I eat rabbit food only under duress. Force of habit explains the vegi-burger. See, every Friday night the deal is I pick up dinner and Pete meets me later to eat. We do some male bonding over tofu, his, and beef, mine. I forgot he's off at college, and ordered for him anyway.”

  His expression went from serious to sheepish, and she wondered how he came by those laugh brackets on either side of his mouth because the guy hadn't cracked a smile yet.

  “Okay,” he said bashfully, “I didn't really forget. I just really didn't want to remember.”

  His sexy mouth twisted. “Okay, I did remember, but I thought if I stood in line at Sprout's like I always do on Friday night it would seem like old times.”

  “You miss him.”

  “Yeah.” His sigh was all male bewilderment.

  “He'll come home, Lou,” she responded, thinking how refreshing it was to hear a man admit to softer emotions. She'd known only one other man who had, and she'd loved him heart and soul.

  When the tears started to well, she added, “I've been out of college five years now and I still visit my folks whenever I can. And I call home at least once a week.”

  When Gillian was alive, Blue had visited more frequently, her housemate in tow. She had never tried to hide their slightly unorthodox relationship from her parents; in fact, her mom and dad had welcomed their daughter's live-in, non-lover with open arms and non-judgmental hearts. They had loved Gillian as much as Blue, herself, had.

  Now, when she returned home, it was different, naturally. Blue knew it would hurt her parents to see their only child suffer, and the last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt those who loved her, so she hid her pain. Until she could get her heart unbroken, she lived a lie whenever she went home. That deceit caused her to keep the visits home short and spread far apart—

  “My car's not here,” her companion said. “I parked at the place I work and walked down to the pier.”

  Lou nodded at the upscale cars in the parking lot at Sprouts. “Which one of these are you?”

  Gillian's last words were an admonition to can the sadness, and because she'd promised she would, she'd at least have to try.

  Shaking the gloom away, Blue said brightly, as perky as a butterfly out to sample nectar from every flower stamen in the meadow, “Holy fuck, Lou! Do I look like a Lexus or a Mercedes to you?”

  At his swift and honest “No", she grinned in delight.

  Gosh, she liked a man who didn't prevaricate!

  “I'm glad to know I'm making the right impression, Lou. I wouldn't want to mislead you in any way. Actually, I drive an old shitbox, a wreck of a Chevy truck, and she's back at the hotel. I walked here too. See? We must think alike.”

  “I don't think so,” he said so warily that she wanted to laugh ‘till she cried and cried and kept on crying.

  After three years, she still had the weeps at regular intervals. Sometimes for days, always for missing Gillian. She'd be laughing one minute, sobbing the next. She'd felt that way all evening, and in that dangerously erratic, slightly schizoid mood, she'd decided to pickup Lou. What the hell and why the hell not? She'd thought. She needed something to distract her. Lou fit the bill.

  She didn't think she fit Lou's bill.

  Gill had understood her, without her ever having to explain. But conservative Lou wasn't used to a woman like her. The poor thing probably didn't know what to make of her. They were in the same boat: Sometimes, Blue didn't know what to make of herself.

  “Both of us on foot tonight makes it nice,” Lou offered. “Nice that we both like to walk. Nice that it's a nice night for walking too.”

  “Yes, it's nice that we both like to walk and it's nice that it's a nice night for walking. And I think, Lou, that about covers the topics of exercise and weather rather nicely.”

  “I'm botching this, aren't I?” Lou mumbled and detached his hand from her elbow to fix his tie.

  A tic, she decided, as his tie was pencil-straight already and needed no adjusting.

  Lou was wound a little tight. And her ‘nice comment’ hadn't made it any easier for him, she admitted in a shamed flush. Here, sh
e'd wanted to be mature about this pickup and she was behaving like a bratty sixteen-year old kid on a first date.

  Only she hadn't had her first date until art college. And even then, the date wasn't really a date at all-

  Oh, Gillian! Her heart cried. Why did I make you that promise? I'm no good at this! Lou's not botching this; I am!

  Blue's attention faded off into memories.

  Tall and gangly growing up, she'd lived mostly in my head. Her height and creative bent made her an oddity. They had also made her a trendsetter, not a trend follower.

  From elementary school through high school, the role of class leader had fallen to her. People expected more from her because there was more of her in inches. As it turned out, though, her teachers were right: Leadership came naturally to her assertive personality and independent spirit.

  But there was a downside to her height and radical freethinking: Taller than all the boys in her class and with her head always stuck someplace in the clouds, dances and proms and the back seats of cars-all those boy/girl social activities—had passed her right by.

  The truth is, she hadn't understood dating in high school and almost a decade after graduation, she still didn't understand dating.

  All the falseness. The artificiality. The putting your best foot forward nonsense that gets in the way of getting to know the real person. Why was it necessary? How could two people ever find out if they were right for one another if they weren't who they really were when they were together?

  Dating made absolutely no sense to her. She wasn't about to bore Lou with her feelings on that subject, however. She'd never get laid that way. Jeez, the guy probably already thought she was weird.

  Nor would she go into a tedious recounting of her background. Why would Lou want to listen to a Cliff Notes rendition of her life?