Where Have All The Cowboys Gone

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Since Hank wasn't around anymore, I decided that it was time for me to get over it and get out. I wanted to forget. That was last Saturday, the night I went to Joey's Bar. I was horny, but I didn't expect that the visit to Joey's would begin one week of pagan sex like I never had before. But it did begin, and I did have it.

After six months of nothing, I figured that if I was going to get any, I'd better look the part. I put on makeup that said both "Courtney Cox" and "hot fuck" at the same time. That meant some high-grade cherry red lipstick that didn't smudge. I calculated with the expectation of success, and I didn't want all my lipstick to end up on his face and cock. Just enough to make it fun. I put on only enough mascara to emphasize my jet-black hair and enough eyeliner to bring out the pale blue color of my eyes. No more. I had the habit of using moisturizer constantly, and so my skin was still good in spite of or because of the desert climate. I put on just enough foundation to bring out my natural light caramel/peach color.

I pulled out that black skirt I bought in Phoenix last year, the full one with the provocative slit up to the waist but a hem that went down just far enough to be at least a little polite. I expected to be playing some pool, so I didn't want to bend over and make the bartender spill my beer trying to get a look. Yes, I did want someone to look. I just didn't know who.

The skirt was made of some kind of shiny material that didn't exist in nature. Since it was a hot night, I didn't want to wear anything tight below my waist anyway. And it was full, which emphasized what hips I do have, and it moved in the breeze—if there was one on such a hot desert night. If a breeze did give viewers a show, I decided to wear that shiny black thong underneath. I know I've got a great butt, it didn't bother me if it got some air time by accident. The thong was made of some sort of fake satin, and it felt slippery on my pussy, even though it didn't breathe much.

I decided to go with something tight up top. My red tank top with the spaghetti straps worked well since I had just gotten my left nipple pierced and it would poke out from beneath if I didn't wear a bra. And I wasn't about to wear a bra tonight. It was simply too hot and my tits are still pretty perky B cups that most men liked to suck on and make my nipples hard like pencil erasers. I liked to have them sucked, too. Hank liked to suck on them, the bastard. Now it was someone else's turn.

A pair of black flats with red accents would do nicely for my feet. I wanted to be able to run if necessary. A few clangy silver bracelets topped it off. I let my hair loose tonight. I wanted to be loose. I didn't want anyone to get the idea that I had been studying Comparative Literature and Creative Writing at Arizona State for the last three years. No reading glasses tonight; no cotton panties, no blue jeans and no modest tops. I was out for blood.

I called Krystal to get a ride to Joey's with her. I figured that if I'm going to get some, I'd better be prepared to go home in his car or, having failed, have a backup with Krystal. Either way I could drink as much as I cared to without worrying about a DUI. Once we got there, I left my wallet in the car. I'd let the gents buy the drinks for me.

At nine o'clock Krystal drove up in her sky blue-colored 1968 Chevy Chevelle SS and honked, which always pisses off my neighbor Mr. Cary even on a Saturday night. She'd let this classic set of monster wheels go to seed after her latest boyfriend pimped it out for her, complete with new suspension, a re-bored set of pistons in the completely rebuilt V-8 small block, carburation and ignition system, a complete reupholstery job in ivory and sky blue and a new paint job. He must have loved her. After five years of misuse and neglect, it was still fairly presentable and ran well for its age. I hated the color, though. No real male would drive it or buy a car in that color.

She skidded out, and we got onto the highway in no time. I rolled down the window and drew the desert air into my lungs. I asked Krystal to stop just to take it in for a few minutes. She pulled over, and I opened the door, got out, walked a few steps and gazed out into the velvety black desert sky, the stars like diamonds and the moon, full and glowing. I secretly congratulated myself for simply getting out of the house and allowing myself to see reality from a different perspective. I felt comfortably insignificant, and that losing Hank would not be the end of the world for me—or anybody. I got back in the car, and we drove on without talking.

When we walked into Joey's, I knew right away that I made a good wardrobe choice. Stevie Morgan turned twenty-one a few months ago and was making Joey's his new hangout. Once he got a glance of me, he started walking funny and bumped into a wall, smashing his pool cue in his face. Drooling caveman. Not bad for a thirty-five-year-old woman, I thought. Maybe it's true that a woman's sexual prime is in her mid-thirties. But Stevie wasn't going to get any of me tonight. I was looking for big game.

Krystal and I took a seat in our usual booth, and before we had ordered our beers, three men surrounded her. Mark Wooten, Karl Bradford and Chris Stowmeyer. All locals, all with a hard-on for Krystal. All three took turns flirting with both of us but staring at Krystal's tits the whole time. Tonight she was wearing her dark burgundy stretch thong body suit and a pair of jeans that made all her curves look even better. Without her bra her nipple occasionally poked up against her bodysuit and gave the boys reasons in their own minds to stick around. Her light chocolate brown eyes and honey blonde hair put together a drool-worthy package. Her new haircut that she got just yesterday was paying off nicely. I liked it too. Her locks fell along her shoulders and framed her face perfectly.

Krystal was softer, curvier, more feminine and shorter than me. She was a D-cup beauty queen with perfect birthing hips, but in spite of it all, she acted so demure that you'd think that she was trying to keep the men away. In spite of my stick frame, I always seemed to get more male attention from men than her—at least in the days before Hank.

I felt that it's been that way because I've always been hornier and easier than her. I've always needed it, even more now than back in high school. Back when I was having my first sexual experiences at age fifteen under the sky in the bed of Kevin Stoddard's Chevy truck, Krystal was baking cookies for church meetings. In spite of what I assumed to be her luscious fuckability, she was a good girl. The only man I knew she had ever been with was her boyfriend at the time, Kenneth, who she had met at church choir camp. And they didn't close that deal until they had been together for well over two years. She had just turned twenty-two. I guess she doesn't need or want it as much as I do. Thirteen years, ten jobs, a few boyfriends and a few lovers later, we were still friends. As for me, before Hank I had more lovers and one night stands that I can count, and only a few jobs. Neither Krystal nor I have yet to meet our true loves, but we are still different women, for sure.

Krystal doesn't seem to mind, though. Our friendship through the years had most of its foundation in her faithfulness to me in spite of her own lack of male attention. I could tell that while she enjoyed attention in general, none of this particular male attention at Joey's was what she really wanted it seemed. Or needed.

I began to feel that coming to Joey's was not what I wanted or needed either. Everyone in the bar knew me, and all of them were keeping their distance. I was Hank's woman, and even now, when it was all over, I still had the badge on. I felt radioactive in a bad way. I began to consider that we may need to go in to town where no one knew me and where the choices were more to my liking. If I was going to land anything worthwhile, I would need anonymity or at least a more "worthy" sample population.

In an attempt to shift the social dynamic, I rose from my seat next to Krystal, strode across the room, shimmied on to a barstool and asked Joey for a beer. "The usual?" Joey screamed over the stale honky-tonk music blaring over the 25-year old speakers that were wired to the ancient but still functioning jukebox. It must have been Garth Brooks, but I didn't care. I never liked Country Western, and now I was already in a bad mood after less than ten minutes.

I was about to nod, but then I paused. "No, no more Bud Light." I yelled back. That was before, when Hank was around. I paused and bit my lip to think. "Coors. On tap. And Krystal's got my tab tonight, Joey." Whatever Joey couldn't hear he understood from my hand signals. I swiveled around to get a look at the room, crossing my legs and letting my skirt fall so that I could expose as much thigh as possible. No takers. I surveyed the room thoroughly, and I realized that I didn't want any. Well, not any of this. What am I going to do? I thought. I'm hornier than a spring brood mare in full heat, and all I've got here is a few brainless studs fresh out of high-school. The rest were has-been geldings and pot-bellied married men. I was surrounded by a pool of useless testosterone in containers of flabby flesh covered by flannel plaid and smelly denim. Brainless dicks.

I had no competition except Krystal, and, in spite of her Marilyn Monroe curves, she wasn't much of a contest. She didn't seem to have the hunger. I had begun to think that she was a secret lesbo. Maybe bi. Either way, I didn't want to think about it. But one day I had to. About six months ago she came to me after I had my first run-in with Hank's fists. She knew that we had stopped fucking almost every night like we had before. Hank had lost his job and began drinking too much. After I cried a bit, she put her hand on mine and looked into my eyes. She was being sympathetic, but I could see something more. When she turned to hug me, she also kissed me on the cheek. She'd never done that before. I thought it was her way of comforting me, but she blurted it out, "Look, Honey. I know you, and Hank ain't doing much in bed anymore, that with his losing his job and drinkin' so much now. But I want you to know that it's him, not you. You're still a beautiful woman. You have beautiful eyes and a beautiful smile, and if I could, I'd fuck you right here." Once it was out of her mouth, she realized what she had said and tried to back paddle. Krystal wasn't much for using words well. "I mean," looking down, "if I was a man, I mean...or you was...I mean." She stumbled more, thinking that making it better was not making it worse. "What I mean is, if you had a cock, I'd fuck you...or let you fuck me..." She didn't put a period on the sentence, but just decided to stop anyway. She just got up and left without saying another word. We never spoke about it again, but at times I actually looked at her and thought that if I had a cock, I'd fuck her. I wondered what her face would look like if I did. Curiosity makes me perverse at times I guess.

Once I accidentally walked in on her when she and her former high school boyfriend, Kevin, were doing it in her bedroom. They were—or I should say,

she

was—making so much noise, they didn't notice me. On the one hand the whole scene seemed boring. Kevin was lying on his back and seemed to be tolerating the experience. He could have been a mannequin. By contrast, she was on top, which I wouldn't have expected of her—that is, if I had any expectations or thoughts of her having sex anyway. She seemed to be demanding something out of him that he wasn't willing or able to give. She could have just as well been fucking a sack of flour. I remember watching her tits bounce up and down, and it was a bit of a fascination. The picture stayed with me, and sometimes, late at night when I'm playing with myself, I have fantasized about her without really noticing. She had a beauty that was not worthy of the world she lived in—or at least the men she let fuck her.

I was about to get up and have Krystal give me a ride home, or even try to get her to take me to some place where no one knew me. If I was going to get lucky, I thought, it would need to be with a stranger. I wanted to be with someone I didn't know, someone who wouldn't remind me of Hank or Sedona or my life as it was up until that moment. Someone new. Someone different.

I asked Joey to change the music to some classic rock. I was looking out the window when Joan Jett began to sing, "I Love Rock 'n' Roll." That's when he drove up on his motorcycle and parked it under the dim glare of the parking lot floodlight. Alone. I noticed the cycle before I saw him. A Honda Nighthawk 750, a sturdy, standard long-haul cruiser that I always thought was the best bike for the vagabond type, the kind that doesn't ride with a posse. He was also wearing a non-descript full face helmet with a black-out visor, which made him look like most drivers in helmets: anonymous and featureless. After he cut the engine, turned off the light and dismounted, he began to remove his leather chaps and stuff them in the saddle bags on the back. I couldn't see his face from where I was sitting, so I lost interest in the mystery.

I turned to the door again when I saw Krystal's face looking at him from across the room when he entered. When I turned, I saw the reason for Krystal's amazement. He had a rough, fit body that came equipped with an enigmatic and chiseled face. He was a "no one" with dark eyes and dark hair. The shadow of his beard told me he'd been on the road for at least a day, maybe more. And the shape of his faded leather jacket told me that a life on the road was something that suited him. And this suited me.

To hide my interest, I immediately swiveled my stool back to the bar, but not without seeing Krystal trying to catch my attention and mouthing the words, "Fuuuuuck meeee!" while shaking one hand in front of herself like her fingertips were burning and ending it all with a smile. She disappeared behind the heads of her three suitors and left me to it.

The stranger looked around and approached the bar, leaning in to Joey, he pointed to the tap. "Coors," he mouthed. Joey got the signal and filled it up. From the corner of my eye I saw a ten note hit the bar and he left the whole thing alone after that.

Good tipper

, I noted to myself.

I glanced up at him, and he returned the look. I knew right away he was both straight and interested. I had a radar for this type of stuff when I was younger, but it hadn't left me even after five years with Hank. Trouble was, he now knew that I was interested too. I'm sure my eyes lingered longer than was smart. But his gaze lingered too. I made that unconscious move any woman who's attracted to someone makes: touching my hair. Once I caught myself, I tried to appear uninterested, even unaware of this presence. It didn't work. And he knew it.

The stranger walked across the room and grabbed two pool cues. I swiveled around again to follow his movements. Bad idea, I thought. Now he had the advantage. In vain I looked down at my shoes, but that was a lost cause. Crossing back across the room and returning straight to my stool, he stood dead in front of me and paused, about a foot from my knees. No words. Just eyes. And what dark and haunting eyes! They were so dark brown that I thought I was looking into a cup of perfectly-brewed espresso.

I was gawking, probably unashamedly, but mostly because I wasn't aware that I was doing so. It wasn't just his eyes. His jaw was square and even, and his nose sloped down like a Roman soldier's. His jet-black hair was long and matted from being crushed beneath his helmet, still dripping with sweat at the ends. His black undersized t-shirt was also soaked a little from the drive across the desert sun beneath the leather jacket, but the moisture caused it to cling to his chest and abs so tightly that it seemed almost painted on. His faded 501 jeans sat perfectly on his hips held up by a thick belt and fastened with a subtle silver buckle, the whole outlining his butt and thighs more artistically than a model in a Ralph Lauren ad in

Esquire

magazine.

So this is where at least one of the cowboys has gone

, I thought to myself. I looked down to see that he was wearing worn black riding boots. If he had been wearing cowboy boots and a hat, you might want to put his image on the cover of a western romance novel. A man like this doesn't have to behave seductively; all he has to do is exist. Even though I could smell his sweat and dust of the road, I was beholding the dream of a pagan beast.

My problem now was that I couldn't tell if he was trying to seduce me or if he was simply interested in a beer and a game of pool with a pretty girl...any pretty girl. In just the way he moved I couldn't tell whether he was simply self-confident or he had a more specific purpose in his approach. He wore his looks with neither distain nor hubris.

Without even noticing, I opened my legs a bit. He advanced one more foot. My knees touched both his hips and brushed the wind-worn denim of his jeans. In one move it was all over. Checkmate. I just couldn't figure out who made the winning move. He wanted between my legs as much as I wanted his hips there. The question remained was what to do next. I heard Heart begin to play "Barracuda" on the jukebox.

He had me in his grip and hadn't said a word. Or did I have him? I think I was trying to seduce him but I couldn't tell if he was also trying to seduce me. He offered one of the cues. I took it and got up to play. I tried to move nonchalantly, but I'm sure anyone who was watching me, especially Krystal, could tell I was faking it all.

He set up and broke. His stroke was immediate, forceful and decisive. I could tell that his mind was now on the game. But when it was my turn, he stood back and watched from behind. I could feel his cock grow from three feet away. Three balls later, he came behind me to help with a stroke that was more difficult than I at first figured. The cue ball was more than halfway across the table, and I wanted to get the seven ball into the corner. He came up behind me, and I could feel his hips, his cock pressing against my ass oh so slightly. He smelled like petroleum, Old Spice, leather, sweat and the dust of the last 200 miles of Interstate 40. I could feel my pussy juice running down the inside right of my inner thigh.

I tried to talk with him, but the music was too loud. The Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil" was playing, and I heard, "pleased to meet you." My voice must have sounded strange because when he spoke he kept pausing, as if to try to interpret what I was saying. He still hadn't said anything I could hear. I wondered if he spoke English.

After five more minutes we hadn't finished the game, but he took my cue and put it away. He knew what I wanted, and I knew what he wanted. I could tell in his eyes that he wasn't dangerous. But he was trouble. He took my hand and led me out the front door. Dylan was in the middle of singing, "Tangled Up in Blue," I forgot about Krystal or that my wallet was still in her car.

We got outside, and something about him and about the atmosphere and about the heat and about...well, I don't know. It all made me feel like I had been slipped a tab of ecstasy or some kind of amphetamine. A blast of desert wind hit me and my hair began to blow around my face. I smelled the dry dust and cactus pollen. A second or two passed, and I could feel another gust come under my skirt and blow it up. For a flash my ass was now on display for Stevie Morgan to gawk at through the window, but I wasn't thinking about that. I can't recall who made the move to stand in front of the other, but we began to kiss like two drunken high school kids at the prom. His arms were around me, and mine around him. Within the next few seconds my hand was on his waist, then his ass, then his crotch. That didn't matter to him since his hands were on my waist then my ass, then my tits—all this in the front parking lot of Joey's Bar. I didn't care, but the highway was empty, and I couldn't see or hear another soul. To me it was just the two of us—two strangers—alone in the desert under the full moon and a red neon light.