Zane
If you’ve ever driven down Interstate 95, to or from Florida, then you’ve passed Coosawhatchie, South Carolina. In fact, you’ve even driven over the Coosawhatchie River. Probably never noticed it, though. When I was a little girl, I used to sit by the banks of the river, watching the cars and trucks speed across the overpass, wishing that I could hitch a ride in just one of them. I never even gave a damn where they were headed. I yearned to escape the small town of 11,407 people residing in 4,164 households, according to the latest United States census.
By now, you must realize that everyone in town has to know each other, definitely by face if not by name. Saying that nothing exciting ever happens in Coosawhatchie is an understatement. In fact, the last “newsworthy” event dates back to the Civil War when General Robert E. Lee
utilized our little slice of heaven as his headquarters as he sought to fortify the coastal defenses of South Carolina and Georgia. Yep, since 1862, life has been pretty dismal here. Unless you count the occasional bar fight in the one bar in town, or someone reporting a freshly baked apple pie being stolen off their screened-in porch.
My name is Betsy Smith. Exotic and original name, don’t you think? I’m twenty-eight years old but I feel like I am living the life of an eighty-two-year-old woman. My mother is the town seamstress so I am her junior seamstress by default. There aren’t many jobs here and my old, rusty ’72 Ford pickup can’t make it far; especially not in the dead heat of summer.
Summer. August to be exact. What I like to call “the long-suffering winds of August.” Nothing but dry heat, a ton of mosquitoes, and the scent from Robert Carlock’s moonshine still lingering in the air. No breeze, no rain, no mercy. Just heat.
Last summer, around this time, things were a tad different for me. I had the most exciting experience of my entire life; at least to date. You see, up until then, my experience with humans of the male persuasion was rather limited. In Coosawhatchie, there are my cousins, cousins of my cousins on the other side, and cousins of their cousins of their cousins on yet another side. Outside of Perry Brown, the town stud because he is the only truly attractive man in town, pickings are slim.
I won’t even form my mouth to tell a fib. I fucked Perry . . . once. He was my first. In fact, he was also a lot of my friends’ first. The older men around town call him Cherry Bomb because he has popped so many cherries that the number is rising on a daily basis. I was never sure whether Perry’s dick was good dick since I didn’t have anything to compare it to . . . until last summer.
Even though I was scared to death, I ventured out with my best friend, Colby. She wanted to go apply for a job at a bar in Savannah, Georgia. She figured that waiting tables couldn’t be so hard and she does have a high school diploma. So we borrowed her dad’s 1993 Cutlass and made our way there.
Compared to Coosawhatchie, Savannah seemed like Paris, France. At least how I had imagined Paris to be. People were walking around, laughing, shopping, hugging and kissing all over each other like it was Christmas in the summer. A cloud of sadness instantly fell over me. I realized that my life was at a standstill and millions and trillions of other people were making the most of theirs.
We arrived at Bottlenecks, a small roadhouse on the outskirts of Savannah, about nine that night. Colby was dressed to impress, and to tantalize, in a pencil-cut black dress and four-inch heels. I didn’t even know where she had acquired the getup but she was looking hot. Me, not so hot. I had on some jeans and a faded T-shirt from the previous year’s Jasper County Fair.
When we walked in, all eyes were on us; presumably because we were what city slickers call “fresh meat.” Colby sashayed over to the bar to ask for the owner, some dude named Melvin, while I surveyed the patrons. My heart started beating faster in my chest and I struggled to keep from hyperventilating. I had never seen so many fine men in one place in my life. Well, hell, I had never seen so many fine men even spread out in various places.
I decided to go stand by a wall. I felt uncomfortable posing in the middle of the floor. No sooner had I picked a good, empty spot when a man in a navy blue suit approached me.
“Hi, I’m Dean.”
I was speechless. He was about six inches taller than me, a dark chocolate, with smooth skin and a low-top fade. But what drew me to him the most were his eyes. They were mesmerizing, like two black diamonds.
“So, do you have a name?” he asked, losing his patience.
“I’m Betsy.”
I reached my hand out to shake his. I did have at least that much common sense. Even though I rarely got to greet someone whom I had never met in Coosawhatchie, I did have manners.
Instead of shaking my hand, he brought it up to his soft lips and kissed it. My uterus damn near dropped clean out of me. I jerked away and he seemed offended.
“I’m sorry. I’m just not used to . . .” I paused, realized that I sounded plum foolish.
“You’re not used to what? Men kissing your hand?” I dropped my eyes to the floor. “Or men period?”
I didn’t respond and Dean chuckled.
“It’s all good, Betsy. Can I buy you a drink?”
“No, no thank you. I never drink.”
“Maybe you need to live life on the edge a little, at least for tonight.”
Live life on the edge! I had to admit to myself that I had thought about that a time or two in my life. After that night, whether Colby got hired or not, my tired, eighty-two-year-old–acting ass was headed back to sitting on the side of the riverbank watching people speed by on the highway.
I glanced over toward the bar and Colby was talking to an older man who was presumably Melvin. Dean was staring at me with those diamonds and something awakened in me that I never realized was even there.
“Dean, would you mind taking me someplace local and fucking me until I black out?” I slapped my hand over my mouth, wondering who the hell had just said that! “I mean . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
Dean placed the tip of his index finger over my lips. “Your pleasure is my pleasure, Betsy.”
Before I could respond, he was leading me out of the club and getting me situated in the passenger seat of a luxury automobile that I could not even recognize.