"You look at her again, I'm going to break my foot off in your ass!"
"Oh for God's sake Bill!" says Dixie sitting down the tray of shot glasses.
I look up from my cards. When my eyes meet Bill's they are as cold as his drunken eyes are hot.
"Bill I looked up cause she walked into the room. I would have done the same if it was anyone, even you. Now I've had enough of this shit Bill. Every time you drink you start to accuse me of trying to have an affair with Dixie. Now enough is enough." I set my cards down on the table and grab up my beer. I grab a shot off the tray and kick back the sweet liquor. "I'm gone go Bill. From now on if I come over and your drinking I won't be staying." I look to the others around the card table as I pick up my money. "Goodnight."
The guys begin trying to convince me to stay, but not Bill. He's still looking a dagger at me. Oh when he sobers up he may remember to apologize.
Dixie follows me out onto the porch apologizing for her husband.
"Jim? Jim!"
I stop but, don't look back. Reaching into my pocket I pull out my cigarettes and tap one out. Habit to look for it shows me the little man taking a piss in the camel's from leg.
"Dixie thank you for dinner. It was delicious." I take a long draw on my cigarette and flick off the ash. "As always." I say softly.
"Jim he doesn't mean it. You know that. He's just drunk. He's like this when he drinks." She shakes her head sadly.
"Then he needs to stop fucking drinking cause he can't handle his liquor worth a damn. I'm sick of it Dixie. He's been my friend for fifteen years now. I can't count how many times he's said some shit like that to me."
"I know Jim. I'm sorry." She says looking miserable.
Taking a pull on my cigarette I look off their porch to my bike. It's a 'pieced together' from dozens of different bikes. Bill had helped me chopper out the front end. Thumping my smoke I watch the ash float down to the damp grass.
"Jim don't go." She touches my elbow. "Let me go talk to him. If I have to I'll get a frying pan and beat it into his head that you don't have any interest in me."
The old phrase is 'the straw the broke the camels back'. Must be some truth to it, I snap my cigarette in half as I turn towards her. The pieces fall to the porch floor as my gaze meets her hazel eyes.
How I went from that to kissing her I have no idea. Just suddenly our lips were together. She stood shocked for a second then began to kiss me back hesitantly. After a few moment of this we hear Bill's laughing with some of the others at the card table.
As our lips part Dixie looks at me with a completely befuddled look.
"Goodnight Dixie." I step on the glowing coal at my feet grinding it out.
"Good...goodnight Jim."
She watches me walk out to my bike. It cranks with a throaty grumble.
The night air is cool as it flows past my face. It quickly washes away the slight buzz I had been feeling. Normally after a night of cards and drinking I would have slept it off on Bills couch.
As I ride I think about how tender and sweet Dixie's lips had been against mine. Her mouth had tasted of the peppermint schnapps she drinks.
After about ten miles I pull my bike up onto the gravel road and head off into the woods. My tires throw gravel from the same spot it always does. The rocks ping off my mailbox.
My truck's reflectors appear soon. I pull the bike in under the carport next to it and shut down the grumbling beast. Only the popping of the exhaust as it cools breaks the silence.
I walk up the worn path through the high weeds and climb the stacked cinder blocks steps of my trailer. The trailer is really old, but I've kept it up since I bought the land. The trailer came with the property for free. The previous owner had recommended I get it under insurance and burn it where it sat.
Yea like I would set fire to a trailer in the middle of a wooded area composed mostly of pine trees.
I stripped it down to its outer shell and rebuilt it back up. Even after all that it's not much to look at on the outside. Suites me I guess. I'm not much to look at on the outside either.
My door opens without a key. I don't really keep anything worth stealing.
I look back out into the 'yard', as I like to call it.
The light from my front door illuminates the pieces of my old VW mud monster. A 1960s bug it little resembles what rolled off the assembly lines. It's been cut to pieces and has huge knobby tires on the back, which ride more beside than under the chopped finders. Grass stands three foot high around it. The engine sits on a tree stump covered in a tarp. Another thing on hold.
Going to the fridge I grab out a six pack. I plop my butt down in my grand father's old rocking chair, a massive piece of furniture. I had needed to take out a big double window just to get the thing inside. It was worth the effort though. Like my grandpa and my dad before me I've slept many a night in it.
The remote brings my old TV to life. Hell most people have cell phones with bigger screens now. I've seen the giant flat screen TVs when I go to Wally world, but I don't need all that crap. I only ever watch the news and then really just to see what the weathers going to be like. I don't need a fifty-inch TV to see bad news.
I'm well into my third beer and almost half asleep when I hear a bike motor approaching. The sound a bike makes as it throttles down to turn into my drive is very distinctive. The lights wash across the window, then the throb of the bike dies.
I don't bother to get up, anyone coming to see me knows to just walk in.
When the door opens and I look up I could not be more surprised.
Dixie unzips her jacket and lets it drop to my couch/bed.
"Dixie?"
She walks over to me without speaking. She leans down and slips off her shoes. The rocking chair goes forwards then back as she straddles my legs. She settles herself down across my thighs. She takes the half-finished beer and drinks down the last of it.
"Jim." She says slowly. "I've never in all our years together even thought about cheating on Bill. Till tonight. Why did you kiss me?"
I look up at Dixie, her freckle nose, hazel eyes, dishwater blond hair. I've seen far more beautiful women in my life, but few as sensual.
My hands come to rest on her hips as my front foot starts to rock the both of us.
"I don't know. I think I just finally had enough of Bill's drunken crap. Then you said what you said, I don't know."
Dixie tilts her head to the side, her long hair falling into her eyes. I reach up and bush it back behind her ear. She leans her head into my hand.
"So you do have an interest in me?" she asks softly.
I drop my eyes to the growing bulge in my jeans. Slowly my gaze moves up across her stomach to her breasts. The splattering of freckles across the top run up to her delicate throat then fade only to reappear across her nose.
Those sexy eyes catch mine demanding an answer to her question.
"Yes. I've always thought you were sexy as hell."
Slowly she nods.
"Were you watching me tonight?" she asks playing with the buttons to my shirt. First one then another are fiddled open.
"Yes and No. I did look up just cause you walked in, but yea I did take a look."
She leans in then till our lips are almost touching.
"I don't think all you wanted to do was look."
As our lips meet my hands run up under her shirt and across her bare back. Her fingers digs into my hair. The violence of our lips sets the chair to rocking faster. I keep it going with my foot.
Her hands come down my neck to my chest. Her fingers catch my shirt and with one hard pull my buttons go flying.
Dixie leans back from me and smiles.
"You really want to do this in a rocking chair?" she asks grinning at me.
I run my hand up her belly till my fingers touch her bra.
"Would be a first."
She looks at me with a raised eyebrow for a second then with a shrug she reaches down and catches the bottom of her T-shirt. It goes over her head revealing a pale blue bra with an edge of darker blue lace.
Leaning forward I place gentle kisses on the freckled tops, my lips flirting with the scratchy lace. I feel her face press into my hair her arms wrapping around my head.
