The first time I saw her, mildly buck teeth, pouty lips, cleft chin, dishwater red hair, a light behind the sapphire eyes, the middle buttons of her blouse were pulled taut, hinting at underwear beneath, and a sturdy behind.

We talked about music. Revealing the power of music, if only spoken of.

“All country songs seem to be about getting drunk, cheating and getting your heart broken?” she asked me.

“Isn’t that what’s life’s about?” I answered.

You sit there together, and do your jobs. It somehow goes beyond that, culminating in the night. Perhaps the end of the story would fit here? Then we can get on with the business of telling it. Few and rarer phone calls. Isn’t that how it always ends?

Ah, the night, tears are an aphrodisiac, long strands of wet webbing moved between our bodies, where they entered one another, glistening.

“You don’t have to pick up those whores. Just come see me,” she said. That good night. I can relive them in my head, the good nights, images, bare ass, thin lip, all curves curves.

“How will it end?” she asked me once.

“You’ll find someone else and get married.”

“And what will you do?”

“I’ll cry a lot.”

And once in time she came to say, “It happened just the way you said it would.”

So, now it’s time to tell about the night.

I opened the door to usher her out, paused, moved closer, put my right hand behind her head, breathe hair, body and kissed her lightly at first, my left hand took her right hand and placed it on my erection; she grabbed hold, and held on. She didn’t want to let go. I felt that was a good sign.

I walk her out to where her Camaro sets, beneath two large white oaks. Her body frisky. She opens her trunk, tossing her raincoat inside, and slams the trunk shut.

“I was so freaked out,” she said. A big smile on her face. “Don’t know why I put my raincoat in the trunk. You must have thought I was an idiot.”

Something in the air, my nostrils flare. Her nostrils flare. We drift into a shadow, embrace, kiss, hardness, lace and denim. The Camaro pulls away. The Buick pulls away. The Mustang pulls out.

What can you do in the cab of a little red truck? “You got a lot more out of it than I did,” she says.

“You wouldn’t take off your pants,” I answer.

Eventually the hearse, hearse hearses. Hearses. Long and black, long and white, long and black.

The Camaro pulls away, raincoat in trunk.