The Heat Seekers

“What, baby?” Grandma Porter asked, gently rubbing Marquita’s shoulder.

“I’m not sure I’m good e

nough for Curtis. I’m not sure I can satisfy him, if you know what I mean.”

Everyone stared at each other, all wondering the same exact thing. Was Marquita marrying a man she had never slept with?

“Chile, please!” the aunt from North Carolina squealed. “How much effort does it take to sexually satisfy a troll.”

“No, she didn’t call him a troll,” Tempest said, trying to suppress a laugh. “That’s foul.”

“Okay—short, then. The man is short. Anyone can see he’s only about what? Four-one? Four-two? My seven-year-old is taller than that Curtis fella she’s marrying. Last night when we got to the rehearsal dinner, I started to ask him if he wanted to go play horseshoes with my son until I realized he was the groom.”

Everyone fell out laughing—everyone except Marquita and Grandma Porter.

“Don’t make fun of my man, Aunt Blanche,” Marquita warned, standing up and about to break bad. “He may be short but he’s from Raoul’s Midget-Breeding Farm, so he is all that!”

“Raoul’s what?” Aunt Blanche asked.

Janessa launched into an explanation. “Raoul has this farm out on Route 29 where he breeds well-hung midgets and hires them out as escorts.”

“Say what?” Aunt Blanche took Tempest’s spot on the vanity and started fanning herself with one of the Acme Funeral Home fans she’d picked up off a pew earlier. “Well-hung midgets?”

“Raoul is the best man today,” Tempest added, confirming Janessa’s earlier statement. “You’ll get to meet him and some of the others.”

“Well, since Curtis is your man, as you call him,” Janessa stated with sarcasm, “how about you go out there and marry him, so I can take these shoes off? They are killing my feet.”

“I second the motion,” Tempest agreed. Her feet were a size smaller than Chiquita’s, but the cheap Payless satin pumps were still causing her feet to ache.

“Ya’ll are right!” Marquita exclaimed. “Curtis is my man! Just because I have to limp to work sometimes after we have sex doesn’t mean I can’t handle him. I mean, if he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t be marrying me. Right?”

“Right!” Tempest shouted out, hoping it would all soon be over.

Grandma Porter frowned. “In all my years, I’ve never had a man make me limp anywhere. Those midgets must really be something.”

“Grandma, you want me to hook you up with one of them?”

“Naw, not necessary. Now that I have my dildo, that’s about all this old woman can handle.”

Everyone started cackling except Aunt Blanche, who had missed out on the bachelorette party and grew concerned. “Momma, what are you doing with one of those battery-operated gadgets?”

“That’s a vibrator!” all the rest of the women shouted out in unison.

Before Aunt Blanche could ask another question, Marquita wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her J.C. Penney catalog wedding dress and swung open the door to the lounge. “Let’s get this here show on the road!”

• • •

“Whew, we finally get a chance to sit down and chat for a few!” Geren exclaimed, throwing his left leg over the bench of one of the picnic tables in Janessa’s grandmother’s backyard.

Tempest giggled as she sat down beside him. “Yeah, I know.” She looked around the yard at the various people doing everything from frying up croakers in the black pots over an open flame to tossing horseshoes to playing spades. “Marquita and Curtis are talking about having a water-balloon fight, but I’m not even down with that.”

“Water-balloon fight?” Geren asked with disbelief.

Tempest nodded her head after taking a sip of her grape Kool-Aid. “Yup! You have to admit it fits right in with the rest of today’s festivities.”

Geren sighed heavily and took a swig of his Miller Light. “I guess.”

Tempest swatted a sugar-hunting fly away from her cup. “So how did you like the wedding? Honestly?”