Dreamweavers Ch. 03

Chapter 3: Chelsea in the Morning

I've been MIA for a while, a little discouraged by the lack of feedback/votes for my other stories, though many thanks to those who did. But that uncontrollable urge to write burns on, doesn't it!? Please--WILL WRITE FOR VOTES/FEEDBACK!

* * * * *

"Yo! DreamWeavers. 'Tell us your dream and we'll make someone cream!' Simeon on the line--to do your dream phyne!"

"My name's Patrick. I'm 54. Wife died a while ago. I want a fantasy. I'm still in shape and not too bad-looking, but the years are showing. I ain't got a look from a missy in a while. Last woman to hit on me was an Alzheimer's victim in a Wal-Mart. Called me a stud. I didn't care about the Alzheimer's part. I could've given her some sex she might remember. I know I would. It's just that her 60-something-year-old daughter was leading her around! 'Mind if I take Mom to the Brer Rabbit motel for a quickie?' wasn't going to cut it."

"So, you want someone to hit on you?"

"Yes. But younger, no Alzheimer's, no one in college. Very sensual. One who gets off with just a little touching. Then goes crazy when things get serious." He pauses. "I don't want to fall in love, mind you. I still love Karen. Couldn't love anyone else but her. A nice sensual fling would be fine."

"Sex?

"Female."

"No, I got that. Do you have sex or just, you know, hit on each other? Touchy-feely stuff. Uh-huh. White or of color? Straight, a little edgy, way edgy? Leather? Sure, I usually include boots?at least on the women. Tell me what else I need to know." Patrick gives me details. This is going to be as easy as fucking an ass at the end of a gangbang! This story is writing itself as he talks!

"The pre-story is free. Two-ways in which you each cum once run about three-fifty. Would you be interested in our special this month? You can have a three-way with humans for only an extra hundred! That's a savings of almost three hundred and fifty dollars! Okay, maybe next time!

"With some character development, add another fifty. You're a guy, so I assume no afterglow shit, right? That crap is such a grind for me to write! Okay, good! Let's say four hundred and I'll throw in a poem for free! You want leather- or vinyl-bound? No, I mean the story! Sure, I'll email it to you tonight. If you like it, you can pick up the fine, Corinthian-leather version with the gold lettering next week."

* * *

Monday night at St. Nick's, my back to the door and talking with my sponsor. I hear the door open and my body tenses, jerks ever so slightly. I cannot see who walks in, of course, but I feel weird, like an unseen attraction. I continue talking to Cal but notice two women moving to the far end of the room and sitting down. One is Mary. She's more-or-less a regular.

"Hello, everyone. Welcome to the regular 6:30 Monday night meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Ashley. I'm a recovering alcoholic."

"Hi, Ashley!"

As the usual pre-meeting business drones on, I try to eye the woman who walked in with Mary. I really can't see much of her?"Sheila," I say to myself, "move the fuck out of the way!" The woman looks well dressed, like she came straight from work.

"Anyone at this meeting for the first time?" Ashley asks.

"Hello, everyone," the woman I don't know says. "My name's Chelsea and I'm an alcoholic and drug addict."

I like her voice. Almost purring. Now, I am obsessed with her. There's a surprise?an alkie obsessed with something! I try different positions in my chair, leaning forward, back, turning left and right. Cal eyes me occasionally. I think he wants to slap me upside the head! I can see that Chelsea is a frosty-blonde wearing a periwinkle-blue sweater that shows nice smallish breasts. As I lean forward, I notice she wears black slacks and black suede boots. Three-inch heels. Grrrrr! I can't get a look at her face. When my time to comment comes, I say a couple non-sequitur shit sentences. The Lord's Prayer seems to take hours. "Keep coming back!" and the meeting mercifully comes to an end.

I make a beeline to Mary to say hello, but only because Chelsea is standing with her, her back to me. As I walk to them, Chelsea bends over to get something from her purse. Her slacks stretch tightly over a really nice ass! I start talking to Mary, who introduces me to her friend. Chelsea is not a Playmate, a pinup, or an I'm-gonna-cum-in-my-pants kind of girl. She's nice on the eyes. Good! I am not immediately suave with women, if ever, and I have been so out of the fucking date-scene that I would make Danny DeVito seem to possess the finesse of Sean Connery. So, since "Fuck off!" is the worst she can say, I decide to try to make conversation. Mary goes to help put books and chairs away. Chelsea and I chit-chat a little. I am extremely attracted to her.

"Have you had dinner yet?" Chelsea asks. "Or want to get a cup of coffee?"

"Are you asking me out?" I ask. "Why?" In A.A., what she just did is called "Thirteenth Stepping"?using a meeting to hit on another alkie, usually extraordinary izle for reasons other than to talk about how the program works.

"I want to flirt with a cute guy," she tells me. Folks in recovery also tend to be a little blunt with each other. The "This is an honest program" standard line. She could have used the more usual lines: I want to get to know you or I really liked what you had to say or I'd like to hear your story or Did you read the 24-Hour book?did you like what it said about??" Instead, it is the nicest thing she could have said to me. I lift her left hand and point.

"Okay. So I'm married," she says. "I'd still like to flirt with you. Interested?"

"Sure. But what if you flirt with me and I flirt back? Then what?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll leave my husband over you!" She laughs. "Just kidding! I didn't plan this to the smallest detail. I flirt. You flirt back. Maybe you work for Apple or Toyota. Maybe you'll cut me a great deal on a Camry or G4 with Cinema Display. You married? That would even the playing field." She smiles.

I must now utter those godawful words. "I'm a widower." This isn't meant to elicit sympathy. Just part of the picture I'm painting for her.

"Oh. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. I won't flirt with you!"

"Coffee sounds great!" I say. "And you can flirt, if you'd like! I'd be flattered." I'm relieved, and pleased.

We head across the street to the Cocoa Bean. I love hearing her boot heels click on the pavement, like castanets. We sit down and order.

"Nice boots," I say.

"Thanks," she says. "Only thing I like about colder weather is wearing boots. I probably have a dozen pair. They feel great and sexy on my skin." Her green eyes sparkle, her skin glows. Cute nose, full lips, high cheekbones. Rosy. I look at her hands and the ring. She is not as young as she looks. Some say check the eyes?but makeup is a wonderful thing. Check the hands, baby, the hands--they always tell. A slight wrinkle to the skin, a bulge to a vein or two. Maybe 42. Maybe older. Fine. I was born the year Dewey didn't defeat Truman. I don't want a woman who grew up during Reaganomics. I want someone who saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and won't tell me that Van Halen's the rockingest band ever. "Oh, Valerie Bertinelli's husband?"

"So, Patrick, can I get a good deal on a Camry?" she asks.

"Right! I sell words, not cars or computers. I'm a writer. Freelance. Majored in creative writing?poetry mostly. But I'm just a whore! Highest and best bidder. Want a birthday card? Let's talk money. Want a story about whales with large penises? Rorqual whales. Let's talk money. Want an article about battered men in marriages? Let's talk money!"

"Do you ever write?you know, uh, any porn?" I blush and look down. She laughs. "You have!" she squeals, almost happily.

"I call it 'explicit adult romance,'" I say in a quiet voice, not wanting others to hear. "It don't pay a cup of coffee! What do you do?"

She laughs. "I can get you twenty percent off a Vibrating Butterfly! I work at The Grown-ups Gallery?you know, on Lake Street?"

Yes, I know. Clothing and Accessories for the Adventurous Adult Mind, if I remember the sign correctly. Haven't been in it in years. Not a sleaze hole?saw plenty of women in there and it didn't have jack-off vid rooms or anything like that. I bought Karen some crotchless panties there once. Found them in the garbage the next day. I took them out, cut them up, and used the spandex to tie my tomato plants to stakes. Best crop I ever had. I miss Karen so.

"Thanks, but I already have a beautiful butterfly," I say. "Purple and blonde and black. Sitting across from me."

She is taken aback. "Hey, I'm supposed to do the flirting, remember?" Chelsea pauses. "That was sweet." Now she is blushing. There is an uncomfortable silence. Where do we go?

"It was an image. Popped into a poet's brain. Habit." I shake my head. "Look it, Chelsea," I say, cupping one of her hands in mine. "My back was to you as you came through the door to the meeting tonight, but I felt something when you walked in. Something. I don't know what. I've become more attuned to shit like that. I'm just a middle-aged man wondering if a pretty woman would find him attractive. That's all. For now. I suppose I should just get a Vette or a Harley. Work my angst off with speed, do a Gary Busey and wrap myself around a light pole. Shall we go?" She nods yes. I help her with her coat.

"You're the first man to do that," she says, turning to me.

"What?"

"Men think they're being so chivalrous or something helping a woman put on her coat. But they always hold it at their height?a woman's got to dislocate her shoulders to try to get her arms through the sleeves. You held it at my height. That shows a man who thinks about who he's with." She pauses, and I remember that Karen taught me that. "You also pulled my hair from under the collar. That's also sweet." That''s my idea. She kisses forecasting love and weather izle me lightly on the cheek. "You really do like women, don't you, Patrick?"

"Now you're flirting with me!" I say.

"Oh," Chelsea giggles, "do you mind?"

We walk back to the church to our cars. She unlocks hers and opens the door, stands by it. "Unzip your jacket, Patrick," she orders. I stand there. My jacket? My jacket? Not waiting for her simple words to reach my brain, Chelsea unzips it for me and places her arms around my waist. She moves her hands to my ass and cups each cheek, pulling my hips against her. Then she reaches behind my head and pulls my lips to hers. She is pressing on the accelerator and I still have the emergency brake on!

"I'm not a good flirt with words, Patrick!" and she kisses me hard, her tongue deep within my mouth. I wrap my arms through her coat and around her waist and hold her tightly. She moans and hums a woman's song of pleasure. I could kiss her like this until dawn. "Mmmm! That was very nice!" she says as she breaks. She pauses, looking down.

"How'd she die?" she asks.

"With the greatest grace," I say, lifting her head and looking straight into her eyes. She has to know how much I loved Karen. She looks away, far away.

"They talk a lot about grace in AA. I don't understand it. I thought grace was something you said before dinner. I've only been clean six months," she says, getting into her car. "Write me a poem. Please! About me. For me. To me. You said you're a poet, right? Be my poet. Bring it next week. I'll be back at St. Nick's! 6:30."

She speeds off. The words "Be my poet!" ring in my ears. I'm not the Hallmark kind, Chelsea. Don't raise your hopes.

I have a week to write a poem to?for?about?a woman I have spent twenty minutes with! A woman who is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict and who works in an adult bookstore. A half-year sober. Who wears nice clothes. A little edgy. Boots. Butterfly.

chelsea in the morning

through the window

like dawn's breeze you flutter

your violet, icy-black wings

past billowing lace curtains

the morning air puckers my skin

i am wrapped in green sheets like the bud of a dahlia

ripe with sugar