Sendie

It was dark, raining like hell, thundering and lightning like I'd never seen before. I sure as hell wasn't going to try to find another campground in this weather, and to make things even worse, I was down to less than a quarter tank of gas.

I'd already passed through two of those little Southern towns, you know the kind, where the "Welcome to" and "Population" info is painted on both sides of the same sign, they're that small. Neither had a motel, one had a gas station but it from the looks of it, it was closed since 1944 or thereabouts. So there I was, creeping along back-Highway number whatever, in the rain and the dark, just hoping to find someplace dry to sleep. I could worry about getting gas in the morning.

With all of the lightning flashes, I'd already had a couple false hopes that turned out to not be lit-up signs after all (one was actually a freakin' tree on fire, I actually sat for almost five minutes, gawping out the window at it, until the rain put it out – you don 't see that every day!).

I was still slowly moving along, looking for a safe place to pull off, and pretty much resigned to sleeping in the car, so I actually yelled "YES!" when I saw, between flashes, a couple steadily glowing lights, one of them a neon "Coca-Cola" sign up ahead on the right. As I got closer, I realized it was one of those combination gas-store-laundromat-post-office places that seem to spring up all over the South, and that somehow manage to cling to life despite the best efforts of Sam Walton and family.

I pulled in and was only mildly disappointed to see that the gas station was closed, because it seemed to be in good repair, and for some reason, the lights were still on in the back of the coin laundry, and the sign on the door said "Open". So I parked in front, hurriedly bundled up my pack, my sleeping bag and some munchies, thought for a moment, and said "Well, why not, I'm gonna get wet here anyway?" and grabbed my (rather full) laundry bag as well, and plunged out into the deluge.

Good plan, bad timing. In the ten or twelve seconds that it took me to get out, close the door, stagger across the twenty feet or so between my car and the Laundromat door, another really huge BOOM!!! and lightning flash went off seemingly right behind me, so that I was blinded and banged my head against the door. Between the lightning and the blow, I was a bit stunned, and by the time I fumbled with the door handle, picked up my laundry bag from the puddle it was in, and got inside, I was completely soaked. And as my eyes adjusted, I stood there blinking, wondering where all the lights had gone.. well, of course, they had gone OUT.

After a moment, I'd recovered enough to realize that I was now inside a big dark room that was at least dry other than the sizeable puddle I was making, and much better than being in a humid car, so I decided to take a few minutes to spread out my stuff on the tops of the washers and dryers. I had no sooner stripped down to my underwear and the only dry (if not fresh) sweatshirt I had in my bag when suddenly I heard what sounded like a muffled squeak of some sort and a loud thump at the back, where (until recently) there had been some lights on.

I had just had time to think: "Oh shit", if that's the owner, this is gonna look weird, me standing here in my underwear, I just hope I don't get SHOT!", when another close lightning flash and accompanying BOOM!!! shook the place and there was a soft moan less than 10 feet behind me. I spun around and was immediately bounced backwards about two feet by something fairly large and soft that said "EEK!!!", that seemed to be female. Whoever she was (another distant flash had showed me that it was definitely a "she", about 5 feet tall, maybe a third that wide, dressed in some kind of big flannel shirt or something and wearing something black from the waist down, and she apparently hadn't seen me either. From the way she banged into one of the washers, ricocheted off that and into the facing row of dryers, said "eek!" again and flew off in another direction, and spent the next few moments bumping into things and "eek!"-ing at least half a dozen times, it was quite obvious that she was completely panicked, so I figured I'd better at least say something (getting shot being still very much on my mind, you see).

Just as I was about to say a rather inane "Hi, there!", random chance intervened and she pin-balled ("eek!") off the same machine beside me that she had hit initially and I was able to corral her in my outstretched arms against it (I had the good sense to have my palms facing the floor, so as not to touch anything strategic). She "eek!"-d once more and seemed ready to launch again, so I said "HEY! It's Okay!" in my firmest 'classroom' voice, just as the lights came on at the back again.

She stood there for a few moments, gasping, leaning backwards against the washer, and I was suddenly very conscious that she was not only female, but very much so. She had very thick, dark hair, one bang hanging down slightly over her left eye, and I could tell she was pretty even with the weak light, but it was hard to tell what her figure was like with the big shirt. She seemed to be a bit heavy-set and rather well padded in the upper-middle area – it was hard not to notice that with all of the gasping and chest heaving and she was wearing some sort of black, tight leggings on short but well-formed legs. To sum up, she was lovely, and the physical type of woman that turns me on the most. As she finally got a look at me, she seemed to slowly come out of her panic attack, and I was quite thankful she was steadily looking up at my face, not downwards (as I was pretty sure that seeing me in my underwear would probably have set her off again).

Then she managed to say something coherent at least: "Hoo.... OhmaGawd, you skeered me so bad, ah thought ah'd just dah!!" (yes, she actually said "skeered" and "dah"), so I backed up a step, lowered my arms, and said, as calmly as I could, given that was standing half-naked in front of a very attractive woman in a semi-darkened Laundromat in a raging thunderstorm, "Hello, my name's Wayne, sorry to have startled you." and stuck out my right hand.

Now, that was probably a bit of a tactical error, and could have ended in disaster, because she then had to look down in order to see my hand, and of course, with the top of her head coming up to around my chin, looking down for her was to look at around my waist height, but instead of completely losing it, she took my hand, shook it and said "Sendie". It was a nice hand, decent grip, somewhat thick fingers, and I could tell she had fingernails, from the way they gently grazed the base of my thumb (you notice the strangest things sometimes).

We stood there for a few seconds, shaking hands, sort of smiling reassuringly to one another, while I desperately tried to figure out what name she had just said (or if it was a name at all, was it a greeting, like "Howdy", or something?), when the moment was interrupted by the most horrific ROAR of thunder I'd ever heard, the whole place shook like a bomb had gone off, and not only were we plunged into complete darkness, but she screamed and hurled herself at me bodily.

I only really discovered that last after the fact, though, because one moment I was standing there holding her hand, and the next (for me) I was laying on my back and "Sendie" was laying completely on top of me, her arms wrapped around my neck, legs straddling my waist, clinging to me for dear life and now sobbing and gasping all over again, and my own arms quite naturally went around her, my left one at her waist, the right at her upper back, and held her close to me.

Now, even with the wind knocked out of me slightly, the back of my head hurting, and the sudden lack of light, I could tell that I had misjudged her figure rather badly. Well-padded, yes, over-weight, definitely not; the reason she filled out the big shirt so well was that she was carrying around a very large set of full, firm and very real breasts under there.... And said breasts were not only pressed hard against my chest, but with her arms around my neck and her face buried in MY neck, it was very clear that she was not wearing a bra. I could feel them clearly through her shirt and mine, so deliciously soft and smushed against my chest, that within about ten seconds the gallant reflex started to kick in seriously, I couldn't have stopped my erection if I'd wanted to.

Not only that, she was wearing the most alluring perfume I've ever inhaled, and despite the strange circumstances, despite having just met her, and all of it, with this intensely sexy woman holding me, I was suddenly SO aroused that I was stricken completely speechless; all I could do was lay there and hold her close, stroke her back and say "Shhhh" over and over.

Finally, after about two minutes of this, she calmed down enough to raise her head far enough from my neck to say, "Ah (gasp), Ah (gasp), Ah'm just so (gasp, hiccup) afraid of the DORK!!!!", then collapsed sobbing softly onto my neck again; she was literally trembling all over, and I could feel her hot tears on my skin in one of those moments you never forget, and never want to end.

By this time, though and in this context, (and having spent the last few weeks in the South), I brilliantly figured that by "dork", she probably meant the "dork" that was surrounding us, and not the one between my legs that was now throbbing, achingly hard and unavoidably pressing against her firm midsection, which she surely had to be feeling with those skin-tight leggings.

At least I hoped she wasn't afraid of that, because there was no way in hell I was going to break up the moment unless someone walked in and pointed a shotgun at me, and even then I'd make sure she let go first. So I lay there and held her tightly while she quietly sobbed and clung to me, this strange and beautiful frightened creature, feeling as if I were part white knight, and part satyr, and loving every sweet and wonderful moment of it.

As her sobs and gasps slowly subsided, and turned to trembling, deep, sniffling sighs... to complete the magical quality of it all, she raised her head from my neck, held her face over mine in the dark, and I could feel her fresh tears on my cheeks.

I sensed somehow that she was looking at me, staring at me there on that floor, in that pitch dark Laundromat, and I held my breath... because I knew, just KNEW, somehow, that this moment was a turning point in my life.

And then she kissed me... softly at first, just barely brushing her lips against mine over and over, moaning almost inaudibly, but then quickly crushing her lips to mine in what I will always remember as the single most passionate, desperate kiss of my entire life, before or since. It was one of those perfect kisses that alters your perceptions of what a kiss can and should be, and I knew, at that moment, when I began to kiss her back, that I was forever lost.