It was a hot July day, the sun beating down as if this was the middle of the desert. I decided to use my season pass and go to the amusement park two towns over to cool off. Lakefront Park has its own beach, a water park and of course amusement park rides, games of skill and the holiday junk food you always find at such places. I tossed a towel, a blanket and a bottle of water into a canvas tote, climbed into my van and drove off.
I could tell from the lot full of cars that the park was going to be crowded. Lakefront is a favorite destination for families day-tripping and is popular for corporate outings, reunions and political rallies. I parked in the season pass-holders' lot and headed for the beach. I saw that the medium sized picnic area was reserved for a family gathering and the large one for a company picnic. Although Lakefront has snack bars and a buffet type restaurant, the management has never had a problem with visitors bringing their own food and charcoal and using the grilles the park provides to cook it. Being accommodating to their customers in areas like bringing their own food and such has a lot to do with why Lakefront is a going concern. The park has been around for more than a century, run by the same family and surviving when many other amusement parks have either been absorbed by chains like Six Flags or have gone out of business.
Showing my pass at the bathhouse and finding an open spot on the beach near the dock, I spread my blanket, stuffed my keys and sunglasses into the bag and got into the water. Threading my way through the bathers to water deep enough to swim in, I ducked under and came up blowing like a seal. Setting a slow stroke, I headed towards the diving float where a college-age lifeguard stood flirting with the teenage beach bunnies in their barely-there bikinis. I didn't climb on but simply floated for awhile, enjoying the cool water and watching the teens walk through the steps of the mating dance, remembering my own days as a lifeguard at this very park twenty years before. After awhile, I started back in, swimming parallel to the wooden dock the marked the west side of the swimming area. It was then I saw her.
She looked to be about 40, my own age, give or take a couple of years. She wasn't precisely a cougar, but she wasn't bad-looking. She had great legs, pretty feet, a nicely rounded ass and good boobs from what I could see beneath the crocheted net shirt and two piece bathing suit she was wearing. Loose skin in the belly, a souvenir of pregnancy, spoiled her lines somewhat. She had an oval face with a sharp nose and a pointed chin, and black hair with brown skin. A finely woven floppy straw hat with a colorful scarf for a hatband shaded her eyes and a digital camera dangled from one wrist. She snapped a couple of pictures of some kids in the water and caught me looking at her. She gave me a smile and a wiggle as if to say, "Like what you see?" and I smiled appreciatively with a respectful nod. I took my time walking past her, giving her a good visual inspection as I went. She pursed her lips in an air-kiss at me, not seeming to mind male admiration at all.
I lay in the sun for awhile, baking in the heat like a lizard on a rock before returning to the lake to wash the sweat off with another swim. She was still on the dock, dangling her feet in the water and chatting in Spanish with a pair of women a little older than she was. As I waded past, I gave her a sidelong glance. She returned it with a lascivious wink unseen by the two older women (cousins? sisters?) talking above her head. I responded with a smile and a raised eyebrow before breaking forward into a racing dive and heading for deep water. When I came back out, she was putting her camera into a shoulder bag, but paused to give me a speculative look and a smile before turning to follow her relatives, hips seesawing as she walked. Smiling to myself, I packed up my own bag and returned it to my van before heading into the park to enjoy a few of the rides.
The biggest draw at Lakefront is the Green Dragon. It's an old-time wooden coaster that ranks in the Top Twenty of America's traditional wooden roller coasters. Its design was inspired by Coney Island's famous Cyclone, but it's 30 feet higher and the track is a third again as long; and unlike the self-contained Cyclone it runs through part of the park over the heads of the amusement-seekers. It passes next to two or three of the other rides, and there's an arcade that makes use of the dead space under it. The line for the Green Dragon runs alongside the Lakefront Giant Carousel, one of the last in the country that still has a complete set of wooden carousel horses that were hand-carved by master woodcarvers in the 19th Century. My waterside mystery woman was on it.
She was waiting for the carousel to start up, sitting on one of the taller horses. She spotted me and smiled at me. I smiled back. She gave me an impish wink, and to my surprise and delight began to move on her motionless mount.
Her thighs clamped to the wooden horse, she arched her back and shimmied her shoulders, her full breasts wobbling in their swimsuit top beneath the crocheted shirt. Throwing back her head, she raised her butt up out of the saddle and pressed against the pole running up to the overhead cranks that move the horses up and down, humping it, working it like a stripper onstage with a wriggle that gave me an instant erection. A bell rang twice, warning the riders the carousel was about to start moving, and she blew me a kiss. As the line for the Dragon moved ahead I tried to spot her on each rotation, but couldn't be sure if she saw me.
I am fond of the Green Dragon. The old wooden coasters have a sense of panache and barely controlled danger induced by the shaking of the cars on the tracks that the newer steel coasters and newest suspension coasters just can't match. They may have higher drops and you may pull more gee's at the bottom of the drops and in the turns, but the wooden coasters make it
seem
like more. I looked at the sky to the west as we climbed the first hill. The air was heavy, and that boded not well. Storm clouds were brewing over that way. I wondered how long the rain they promised would hold off and how long it might last when the storm broke. I forgot about the weather as we topped the hill and with a "Yeee-HAH!" went screaming down.
I got off at the end of the ride, simultaneously exhilarated by the adrenaline rush and disappointed that it was over so soon. I walked down the stairs, intending to get back in line and ride again, when the woman in the crocheted top and straw sun hat came up to me.
"I've been waiting for you," she said in a voice with a sensual purr in it. "I'd like to ride the roller coasters here, but it's no fun by yourself. Interested?" She slipped her arm through mine. I reached over to stroke her arm, enjoying the feel of her soft skin.
"Consider yourself escorted." We got in line for the Dragon.
We exchanged names (Richard and Paloma, respectively) and chatted while we waited for our turn. Paloma had driven up from Fort Lauderdale for her family reunion, as she did every couple of years. I'd seen a neatly lettered sign by the medium sized picnic area marked "Reserved for the Marielito Family," but of course had thought nothing of it. Her two kids were grown and out on their own. She owned a small swimwear shop across from the beach that earned her a nice living.
I in turn told her about the antique shop I'd inherited and ran with two assistants and a retired furniture maker who worked on commission restoring pieces I found at estate sales and auctions. Summer and fall are my busy seasons, but as I prefer the quest for wares to sitting in the shop, much of the time I was on the road. That the sales which had looked promising this week had been on Thursday and Friday, not Saturday, was what had left me with a free afternoon.
Our turn came and I turned to her. "Front or rear?"
"I like the rear better," she said, giving my arm a squeeze. When the gate opened, I hip-checked a teenage stud aside and beat him to the hindmost seat. I waved Paloma in and sat beside her. Without asking permission, I reached up and plucked the hat off her head. She looked a question and I pointed to a sign prominently displayed by the launcher's station: WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST HATS, GLASSES OR OTHER POSSESSIONS.
"Oh." I used the scarf to tie up the brims over the crown and tucked it behind my calves. She tucked her arm in mine again and I laid my hand over hers on the safety bar, our fingers intertwining as the launcher pulled his lever and sent us on our way.
As we climbed the high hill, she snuggled closer and rubbed her leg against mine, looking at me. I smiled back and leaned in to kiss her as we went over the top and plunged down. She shrieked with delight, her black hair streaming in the windblast as we dropped, heedless of the dark clouds gradually closing from the west. We were thrown against each other again and again as we whipped around the turns, catching glimpses of other rides and flying over people on the ground that seemed close enough to touch as we rocketed along. Her eyes were bright as we eased to a stop back at the starting point.
"What other rides do they have here?" she asked. Arm in arm, we set out to try the other thrill rides Lakefront has to offer. She delighted in the Log Flume and the Whitewater Rafts in the waterpark and the Slide of Life that flies you on a pulley on a wire over the parking lot, and was laughing as we joined the line for the Squirrel Slalom.
