"Wouldn't you rather take me home...."
The names are changed. The events are as I remember them.
*********************************************************
Long drive, longer than I had planned, going up 880 from the south bay to Oakland. Never had been in Oakland before, really. My first two years in the bay were spent all in Pleasanton and the Peninsula, with the obligatory expeditions to San Francisco. I was newly separated, the kids and their mother were still in the townhouse off 680 and I was in Mountain View, closer to work. Invited to a house party hosted by my friend Linda and concocted by someone named Marilyn. It was a cuisine night, a Cajun party, and eveyone had to bring a dish. I brought shark in Creole, I was never a great chef, but I was passable in the kitchen.
There was a concert at the Oakland Collesium, some teeny bopper group, and I was running late. It was a madhouse, car after car load of teenage girls jamming the freeway, hanging out the sun roof, screaming at each other. Pandemonium and pressed ham. No way I was going to be on time. Well, no worries, Linda told me these things never started on time anyway. It was a warm September Saturday night, I had the windows down, feeling the air. Summers in San Francisco can be down right frigid, strangely enough. The intense heat of the Central Valley and the cold ocean current off the coast conspire to suck cold, wet, foggy air thru the golden gate all summer and refrigerate every thing in its path. But in September, the "air conditioner" stops running and things in the bay and the coast get downright consistently warm.
It was a younger me, long hair, the body of a casual but committed gym rat. I was just out of a miserable marriage, a screwey affair and a disaster of an ending. That night, I was feeling better about life than I had in a very long time.
After winding my way through the East Bay hills, I found myself at Linda's house. I could hear the sounds of a party up on her deck. Armed with a bowl of Shark Creole and a fitting excuse for being late, I proceeded up the stairs to her front door. The house is interesting, one of those custom redwood cliffhangers that dangle from the sides of the Oakland hills.
The party seems to be getting underway. The crowd seems older, my impression was late 30's and 40's, probably single agains and obviously an east bay crowd. There seemed to be a even mix of ages and genders, and I remember thinking, college faculty singles mixer.
I can hear Linda's voice on the deck. Linda is a bit larger than life. Short, curvey, muscled, brassy, attractive in a earthy crunchy sort of way. She came to San Francisco in the summer of love and spent a year living on apples and borrowed pot. When she got sick of apples, she met a man, had a son and started businesses. Eventually she and her husband owned one of the largest auto repair shops in Northern California and along the way she had picked up a masters degree and a position as a manager at a large California company. When I met her the husband had been gone some years, the son was living with her in the house they had bought together and she was a fellow manager at the same factory I was working. We considered dating, but wound up friends, and she had been a source of support and a good friend through my recent series of incomprehensible events.
"Linda" I boom as I walk onto the deck. " would that you had TOLD me that there was a teeny bopper concert between you and me tonight!" She laughs and tells me to get a beer. "its over there, a keg of Tied house Ginger beer". She knows I love unique beer.
I turn towards the keg.
Standing there is a tall blonde woman, pair of tight fitting jeans, too small blue tanktop showing off an athlete's belly. Her socks and her shirt match. She looks up.
Two things strike me.
The first is that she is beautiful. Blue eyes, full red lips, face like Kim Basinger, smile like a spring day.
The second is how she is looking at me. It was obvious, so obvious that I was surprised. She looked at me and I could see her face just light up, like she had just seen Adonis. I had never until then had someone look that enraptured to see me.
"Hi, I'm Maurice."
"Hi, I'm Marilyn, you want a beer?"
We step in side the house, beers in hand.
We talk. She is the organizer of these events, lives in the east bay. I tell her a bit about me. We talk about how we know Linda. Turns out she sidelines as a color consultant. I make a off hand remark that maybe she could do my colors sometime, improve my image.
Her face changes, goes all cold. " Well, you would have to pay me money for that."
Well, that went south fast. The conversation dies, and we move off to talk to other people. I figure it's a no starter. Too bad. Oh well, pretty woman, but I guess I plucked the wrong string.
I move off to get some food and chat with others. The inside crowd is ok, fun enough, if a bit muted and reserved. I head back out to the deck to find Linda and her sister sitting together. Now Linda's sister is about my age, brunette, thin, very pretty. She is an odd mix of librarian and dominatrix, with a hint of Angelica Houston as Morticia. She is also wicked funny in a wicked way. So am now in this conversation group of Linda, the sister, her boyfriend and a couple of random people. Linda is sitting beside me. She gets up to go somewhere, I am laughing my tail off at the sister's last comment, something deliciously disgusting about her boss and a co worker.
I turn around and there is Marilyn, sitting in Linda's vacated chair, with a plate of pecan pie and a piece on a fork, pointed in my direction.
" You have to try this.", she says. So I do, and we sit there as she feeds me pie, one piece at a time.
Later, much later I learned that at first she thought I was coming on too strong, and she felt she had to push me away, put me in my place. As the evening wore on, though, she realized that she didn't want me to go away.
We go back to talking, someone calls for a toast to Marilyn as the instigator, and then someone else puts on dancing music. We all get to dancing, and at somepoint I am looking at Marilyn up close, and her eyes pose a question, and I answer her with a kiss.
She is a kisser, soft, big lips. I must be doing ok too, from the sound of things and her response. We end up making out and whispering to each other on a far corner of the deck, with the lights of the bay below us.
Now I learned a long time ago that there is nothing wrong with being forward with a woman, but best policy, when first meeting, is to end the night heading home alone with a phone number in hand, especially if you really are interested in a gal.
"Give me your number, I'll call you. We can go out to dinner some time this week."
She looks at me, smiles and says..
"Wouldn't you rather just take me home and fuck my brains out?"
And thus it began.
*********************************************************
Long drive, longer than I had planned, going up 880 from the south bay to Oakland. Never had been in Oakland before, really. My first two years in the bay were spent all in Pleasanton and the Peninsula, with the obligatory expeditions to San Francisco. I was newly separated, the kids and their mother were still in the townhouse off 680 and I was in Mountain View, closer to work. Invited to a house party hosted by my friend Linda and concocted by someone named Marilyn. It was a cuisine night, a Cajun party, and eveyone had to bring a dish. I brought shark in Creole, I was never a great chef, but I was passable in the kitchen.
There was a concert at the Oakland Collesium, some teeny bopper group, and I was running late. It was a madhouse, car after car load of teenage girls jamming the freeway, hanging out the sun roof, screaming at each other. Pandemonium and pressed ham. No way I was going to be on time. Well, no worries, Linda told me these things never started on time anyway. It was a warm September Saturday night, I had the windows down, feeling the air. Summers in San Francisco can be down right frigid, strangely enough. The intense heat of the Central Valley and the cold ocean current off the coast conspire to suck cold, wet, foggy air thru the golden gate all summer and refrigerate every thing in its path. But in September, the "air conditioner" stops running and things in the bay and the coast get downright consistently warm.
It was a younger me, long hair, the body of a casual but committed gym rat. I was just out of a miserable marriage, a screwey affair and a disaster of an ending. That night, I was feeling better about life than I had in a very long time.
After winding my way through the East Bay hills, I found myself at Linda's house. I could hear the sounds of a party up on her deck. Armed with a bowl of Shark Creole and a fitting excuse for being late, I proceeded up the stairs to her front door. The house is interesting, one of those custom redwood cliffhangers that dangle from the sides of the Oakland hills.
The party seems to be getting underway. The crowd seems older, my impression was late 30's and 40's, probably single agains and obviously an east bay crowd. There seemed to be a even mix of ages and genders, and I remember thinking, college faculty singles mixer.
I can hear Linda's voice on the deck. Linda is a bit larger than life. Short, curvey, muscled, brassy, attractive in a earthy crunchy sort of way. She came to San Francisco in the summer of love and spent a year living on apples and borrowed pot. When she got sick of apples, she met a man, had a son and started businesses. Eventually she and her husband owned one of the largest auto repair shops in Northern California and along the way she had picked up a masters degree and a position as a manager at a large California company. When I met her the husband had been gone some years, the son was living with her in the house they had bought together and she was a fellow manager at the same factory I was working. We considered dating, but wound up friends, and she had been a source of support and a good friend through my recent series of incomprehensible events.
"Linda" I boom as I walk onto the deck. " would that you had TOLD me that there was a teeny bopper concert between you and me tonight!" She laughs and tells me to get a beer. "its over there, a keg of Tied house Ginger beer". She knows I love unique beer.
I turn towards the keg.
Standing there is a tall blonde woman, pair of tight fitting jeans, too small blue tanktop showing off an athlete's belly. Her socks and her shirt match. She looks up.
Two things strike me.
The first is that she is beautiful. Blue eyes, full red lips, face like Kim Basinger, smile like a spring day.
The second is how she is looking at me. It was obvious, so obvious that I was surprised. She looked at me and I could see her face just light up, like she had just seen Adonis. I had never until then had someone look that enraptured to see me.
"Hi, I'm Maurice."
"Hi, I'm Marilyn, you want a beer?"
We step in side the house, beers in hand.
We talk. She is the organizer of these events, lives in the east bay. I tell her a bit about me. We talk about how we know Linda. Turns out she sidelines as a color consultant. I make a off hand remark that maybe she could do my colors sometime, improve my image.
Her face changes, goes all cold. " Well, you would have to pay me money for that."
Well, that went south fast. The conversation dies, and we move off to talk to other people. I figure it's a no starter. Too bad. Oh well, pretty woman, but I guess I plucked the wrong string.
I move off to get some food and chat with others. The inside crowd is ok, fun enough, if a bit muted and reserved. I head back out to the deck to find Linda and her sister sitting together. Now Linda's sister is about my age, brunette, thin, very pretty. She is an odd mix of librarian and dominatrix, with a hint of Angelica Houston as Morticia. She is also wicked funny in a wicked way. So am now in this conversation group of Linda, the sister, her boyfriend and a couple of random people. Linda is sitting beside me. She gets up to go somewhere, I am laughing my tail off at the sister's last comment, something deliciously disgusting about her boss and a co worker.
I turn around and there is Marilyn, sitting in Linda's vacated chair, with a plate of pecan pie and a piece on a fork, pointed in my direction.
" You have to try this.", she says. So I do, and we sit there as she feeds me pie, one piece at a time.
Later, much later I learned that at first she thought I was coming on too strong, and she felt she had to push me away, put me in my place. As the evening wore on, though, she realized that she didn't want me to go away.
We go back to talking, someone calls for a toast to Marilyn as the instigator, and then someone else puts on dancing music. We all get to dancing, and at somepoint I am looking at Marilyn up close, and her eyes pose a question, and I answer her with a kiss.
She is a kisser, soft, big lips. I must be doing ok too, from the sound of things and her response. We end up making out and whispering to each other on a far corner of the deck, with the lights of the bay below us.
Now I learned a long time ago that there is nothing wrong with being forward with a woman, but best policy, when first meeting, is to end the night heading home alone with a phone number in hand, especially if you really are interested in a gal.
"Give me your number, I'll call you. We can go out to dinner some time this week."
She looks at me, smiles and says..
"Wouldn't you rather just take me home and fuck my brains out?"
And thus it began.
posted by Maurice_Basilius at 1:55 PM
1 Comments:
BUT how did it end?
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