Heterochromia

"Well, no problem, guys. No problem. Carlos, pull the truck over and winch our Mustang onto the trailer." Jeff didn't seem too worried, but Dale started freaking out.

"Fuck off!!! You can't take my car, you fucking asshole!" He was starting to panic, and got the same look on his face as he did when he'd dropped an easy fly ball because he was grandstanding when we were in the State High School finals.....and cost us the game.

"OK, man, then just fucking pay up." Carlos didn't say much, but people tended to listen when he did.

Dale and his two buddies literally dumped the contents of their wallets on the hood of the Mustang, scraping together barely half of what they owed the Navarros. Dale brought the crumpled wad of cash over to me, as if I could somehow make an excuse for him.

"Are you fucking SERIOUS? Why the FUCK didn't you have the cash ready, man?"

"I.....uh, thought that..." He was close to tears.

"YOU THOUGHT YOU'D FUCKING BEAT THESE GUYS, DIDN'T YOU?!!!!!!!!"

"Hey, Mike, it's not on you, man, don't sweat it, we're cool." Jeff then went over to the trailer and started to pull the winch hook loose. Then he looked at Dale and told him that his sister had wanted a Mustang for a while.

"No! Not my car! Come on, guys, we gotta be able to work something out..." His gym rats had slipped into the shadows, and he stood alone in an expanding pool of 20-50 Pennzoil.

"OK, man. Here's the deal. You only have half the cash. You have a car with a blown motor. So, either my sister has a Mustang, which is going to make me the best big brother a girl ever had, or, you hand over whatever cash you have, and..........." Jeff looked over at Lorelei with an expression that needed no clarification. She looked at Dale, then at me.............

"BUT MY PARENTS BOUGHT ME THAT CAR FOR GRADUATION!!!!!!!!" Lorelei looked as if she'd been sucker punched, the entire group emitting a disgusted gasp.

"Fair enough." Jeff stepped away from the trailer, allowing Ray to pull the Vega onto it. Lorelei asked if she could ride back to the shop with me, which was cool with Jeff. A few minutes later, Dale stood alone on the cracking asphalt, miles from anyone, the oil slick beneath the Mustang stinking of shame and burnt metal.

Lorelei was quiet, her feelings obviously hurt, but trying to make some sense of the situation.

"I guess I probably deserve this, huh? I mean, I havn't been a very good girlfriend to Dale."

"He's a fucking idiot. If he was worthy of someone like you, I'm sure you'd have treated him better." I didn't care about Dale at all, and was tired of being diplomatic in my opinion of him, and of morons in general.

"Look, Mike, I know that you said that you'd like to watch me get gang banged, but, would it be OK if you, kind of made yourself scarce once we get back to the shop? I mean, if we don't see each other again after you leave for school, I'd rather you remember me kickin' ass on stage at Baylor's last night, not bein' some cheap slut that got fucked because her boyfriend lost a drag race....."

I looked over at her, wondering if she'd ever bother getting up on a stage again. She looked so fragile, even behind her brave face. We pulled into the shop parking lot, the Navarros the only other ones there.

"Go inside. I gotta talk to these guys for a second.........I'll see you later, OK?"

She nodded without looking at me, then got out of the car and headed inside. Then I got out and walked over to the Navarro's truck......

Lorelei stripped and sat with her legs spread on the edge of an old weight bench in what was once a stockroom in the back of the shop. The room was windowless and stiflingly hot, the oily stench of sixty years of spilled petrochemicals mixing with the sour, musky funk of anal sex. A single, unfrosted light bulb hung fron the ceiling, the floor strewn with condom wrappers and empty Polaroid film boxes. She stared at the floor in front of her, looking up with fatalistic resignation as the door opened....

"Well, I do say, my dear, that is no way to be dressed if I'm gonna take you to the carnival, now is it?" It was my best attempt at a southern accent, and I knew it sucked. Lorelei bit her lower lip, then grabbed her dress and ran across the dirty floor and threw her arms around me.

I'd settled up with the Navarros, telling them I'd collect from Dale myself (which I never did, it felt better to let him think that Lorelei had paid for his stupidity). I also gave them some tools and stuff that I wouldn't need for a while. I knew these guys depended on the cash they made doing this, and that Ray and Carlos were both married with little kids. And, I knew that whatever respect they were shown was always payed back tenfold............

Lorelei looked at me, her hand caressing my face as she seemed to be thinking of the right way of telling me something without hurting my feelings. Finally, she just pursed her lips, and told me what was on her mind.

"Honey, with all due respect, you should avoid tryin' to speak with a southern accent. You sound more like Foghorn Leghorn than Rhett Butler...."

I replied, and it was the last time I ever attempted to sound like I was from the land of cotton...

"Is that, I say, is that how you see me? Just a big white cock?"

It sank in for about one second, then she smiled and slapped me across the arm, and called me an asshole......

I'd never enjoyed a carnival as much as I did that night, a beautiful woman on my arm as we sauntered through the crowd, eating our fill of cotton candy and risking our lives on every shaky deathtrap on the midway. The sideshows were anticlimactic, but thrilling for that very reason; to see the looks on the faces of the simple rural folk as they gasped at the sword swallowers and bearded women was to see the fact that folks lived their lives between very narrow parameters. As we walked back to the parking lot, Lorelei turned to me and kissed me like I'd never been kissed, both of us bathed in the glow of colored flourescent tubes and the sound of barkers and girls shrieking on the roller coaster. The muggy air had taken on a familiar chill; soon the shrieking girls would be swapping secrets about boys before classes, leaves would be turning, and kids would be waiting for the Christmas catalogues to come out. And I'd be in Pennsylvania, starting a new life. The only thing that mattered at that moment, however, was the woman leaning her head on my shoulder as we walked back to her old Buick.

We went back to my apartment and made love for hours, filling ourselves with the other's tastes and smells, savoring every moment of ecstasy until she fell asleep in my arms. I layed awake, holding her silky skin against me until dawn, when I got out of bed to let the cat in and fix something to eat.

"Hey, Sunshine, time for breakast!"

She rolled over, pulling the covers over her head, until she realised that she was getting breakfast in bed.

"Oh my God! Nobody's EVER brought me breakfast in bed!"

I love the way a woman looks in the morning after being well fucked the night before......

I crawled back into bed and had breakfast with her, talking about the future, where I'd be living when I got to school, what she was going to do. Then the cat jumped up onto the bed, creeping up toward us in hopes of getting a few drops of milk or attention.

"My, aren't you a handsome thing.....oh my God! He's got eyes like mine!" Lorelei was delighted by the fact the tough old bastard had one pretty blue siamese eye and one yellow one that looked more bobcat than anything else. She scooped him into her arms, which he just let her do. Kind of surprizing, actually; he really wasn't the touchy/feely type.

"So, are you takin' him with you?"

I hadn't thought much about it. He was here when I moved in, and the landlady said he was here when she bought the place. He'd kind of picked me as his human, and I'd taken him to the vet to make sure his shots were up to date and the vet told me that he'd been neutered, so he was someone's pet.....at one time. He'd also lost a couple of toes and the tips of his ears to frost or urban combat.

"I guess not. Want a cat?"

School was incredible; my life was changed in so many ways so quickly. Within days of being there I had met some of the most amazing people, and over the course of the first semester I had learned more than I'd learned in my whole life. Not a week went by when I didn't get a letter from Lorelei, who had taken it upon herself to mirror what she was doing with my life. She'd moved back to Georgia, was making connections, getting gigs as a background singer, was seriously studying piano and music theory, and was mind bogglingly happy. I'd write her that I'd driven out and seen Frank Lloyd Wright's "Fallingwater", or met one of my heroes like Smokey Yunick, and then I'd hear back from her, her handwriting giddy, telling me she'd met Carly Simon or Neil Young..........

I'd just started dating my future wife, and as we were headed out for an evening, I pulled out one of my favorite CDs and slipped it into the player. My girl was VERY impressed, and told me in no uncertain terms that if she was ever going to make it with another woman, Lauren Baylor was not only on the short list, she WAS the list...

"Yeah, she's a friend of mine.........and yeah, she's pretty fucking hot."

"SERIOUSLY?!! How the HELL do you know Lauren Baylor?!!"

"Lorelei Beauregard, actually. I met her the summer before I left for school, she was dating some guy I knew."

My girl sat there dumbfounded, holding the CD case for "Heterochromia" in her hands, poring over the cover shots; Lorelei's eyes on the front, and the eyes of a grizzled cat, one siamese blue, one bobcat yellow, on the back.

"Are her eyes really like that? They are fucking AMAZING!"

"Yup. His eyes are, too. That's my old cat on the back."

"Bullshit.......really?"

"Really. You can ask her yourself. She's playing here next week, and we're going for dinner. I'm sure she'd love to meet you, she was really happy when I told her I was dating someone cool."

She sat there with her mouth hanging open, still trying to absorb the fact. After a few seconds, she turned and looked at me.

"God, I know it sounds stupid, but do you think she'll like me?"

I looked at the woman in the seat beside me, the way her blond hair framed her pretty face, her velvet smooth skin, her long, supple legs. In the heat of the summer evening I could smell the delicious sweetness of her body.

"Yeah, I think you two will really get along.............."