The Lady Killer

"Take this," she says, slipping a tiny round purple pill delicately into my trembling palm. "It will make you feel better."

I could only hope. I haven't had a headache this bad in . . . ever. The only one that comes close happened on spring break in Tijuana, 1995. It was my first taste of genuine Mexican mescal, and four hours later was my last. The dirty liquid eased down my throat as gasoline through a length of garden hose, and it tasted as I believe a cactus might.

I awoke the next morning on the sheetless bed of a dirty, roach-infested TJ motel room, pants around my ankles, my left wrist hand-cuffed to the head board, and a small hair brush sticking out of my ass, the bristles burrowing into my inner thighs like the aforementioned cactus. I opened my eyes to the piercing sun knifing its way through the holes in the curtain, burning its rays into my retinas. My head was throbbing. Pulsating waves of razor wire sliced at my brain. As I moved to turn over on the sweat-soaked mattress, someone decided that my skull was a walnut, and the only way to get it open was with the forceful services of a five pound ball peen hammer.

This is much, much worse. This time, there is blood.

"Take the purple pill," she insists, "and it will all go away. Stop screaming."

Crap. My head's been pounding so badly that I couldn't even hear myself cursing the gods that gave me pain receptors. I shove the pill into my mouth and knock it back with a shot of bottled water.

My throat tightens and tries its damnedest to force the pill back into the open air. I take the bottle and pour every cold drop into my mouth, and the pill slides down. My vision becomes blurry, and I begin to fade into carpet. I've hit the floor face first, and my body splashes into a dozen shimmering pools.

The reflection of a beautiful woman, young enough to be beautiful without qualification, but aged to the wisdom that her beauty is an asset, not her identity. Her blue eyes study the pools, her hand wondering if it should pull them back together. She hesitates, then brushes aside the waves of pain as I reconstitute into a mass of blue marshmallow fluff.

Her mouth moves slowly, but the words that I cannot hear appear almost frantic. Is she trying to wake me? Do I hear horses galloping? She looks upset. The world turns black, and I can't even see my life before me.

I feel almost solid again. I don't know how long I've been in the dark, but after remembering Tijuana, I think I like it better this way. I feel like my soul and body have switched places. My body lies deep inside of me, well-protected for the moment from the harsh realities of a busted skull. I never saw that one coming. It doesn't matter. Even if I had eyes in the back of my head, I'd be blind now, anyway.

Serves me right for fucking a woman I don't even know. Sex with the wrong woman has been getting man in trouble since the beginning of time. You'd think we'd have learned by now.

Nope.

She has the body of a pro and the mind of the Riddler. Her movements are a beautifully choreographed ballet, and her words, enigmatic poetry. A seductress of the highest order, she sucked me in with her first look of contempt.

"Do I know you?" She nearly had to yell for me to hear her over the music in the bar . . . excuse me, club. "I don't accept drinks from strange men."

"Then you must know me." I shot her a narrow-eyed glare that left no mistake that she could not convince me that she is too good, beautiful, hot, sexy, goddessly for me. I have a nasty habit of looking right through people and seeing who they are deep inside, and I knew that she couldn't resist the challenge I lay before her. "Too quick for you, or just too stupid?"

I've seen that look before, but never on a woman. That knowing smirk that a shark might give a baby seal, if it had lips.

"It was definitely stupid."

"I wasn't talking about the joke."

I have seen that look, though, and always on a woman. She can't believe I just said that, and now she doesn't even know if she should be offended. I guess she figured that out later.

"That's for the dirty look," I console. "Next time just flip me off." I walk away.

It's still dark, and I feel hot. Can't someone open up a window? The pain is still gone, but I feel paralyzed. I can sense that I'm moving, but there is no firm gravity of leg on floor or hand on chest. My kinesthetic sense still works, even if nothing else ever will. My eyes roll back into my head, I think, and I'm bobbing beneath the surface. The current jostles me gently forward and back, rocking me into a deep coma. I remember walking home.

I drank too much, as is typical of my night time meanderings through the alcohol and house music social scene. My place is within staggering distance, but barely. I can make it. I got out of that motel room, I can get home, can't I? A red BMW nearly clips me as I stumble across the street, and I realize that I just may be the only drunk who was smart enough not to drive to a bar. The Beemer stops in front of me. The passeneger window rolls down as I make my way forward along the aerodynamics of the car, and somehow I am not surprised to see my friend, the stuck up model bitch.

"Would you rather get hit by a car or die in one?" she dead panned.

"I'd rather die by violent female orgasm, but I suppose you've never had one of those." Why were we doing this to ourselves? Masochists should never mate, as everyone would eventually end up on the bottom, and there would be no fucking going on. The world would end through systematic self-inflicted involuntary depopulation. I know where this is going, yet here we are.

I have a deathwish on behalf of the entire planet, so I get in the car.

I've had sex with women who had no clue what was going on. Classically, they are referred to as "dead fish". I hate that. There is nothing worse, for a man or a woman, than a sex partner who lies there expecting the partner to do all the hard work, like swiveling the hips at appropriate angles, or forcing in against the motion. No kidding, I slept with a woman of 30 years once, who was experienced, who had no problem sampling the buffet of man meat God gave her, who laid there like a fucking log (literally, a fucking log) and showed absolutely no appreciation for the magical experience that I, a certified master of the intercourserial arts, had begrudgingly, yet blessedly bestowed upon her. And the worst part of all -- that "I just did you a favor by letting you put your dick in me" attitude.

That is exactly how this hot mama in the BMW did not fuck.

And I knew, I just KNEW that something was up when she said that she wanted to take me from behind. But she had done so much for me to this point, I felt obligated to throw her a bone . . . rather, let her throw ME a bone, as it were.

That's when things got painful.

"Take this," she says, slipping a tiny round purple pill delicately into my trembling palm. "It will make you feel better."

That little miracle worker is taking me on a wonderful journey. I feel a cool rushing breeze envelope my soul, which seems to be slowly making its way back inside. I see stars. Wow. What a great pill.

No. I'm outside. Well, not exactly. What the hell am I doing in her trunk?

"Take the purple pill," she said.



**To Be Continued**