Every Bed in Town

I wake up with a woman in my bed. She’s kicking around and pushing at the blankets.

“Goddamn it’s freakin hot,” she says. She’s sleeping on the side with lots of feathers. I’m sleeping on the cold side.

“Stoppit,” I say, still half asleep, “it’s twenty below out there. Take off some of your shirts if you’re hot.”

“It’s morning.”

“Nuh-uh.” I’m so not a morning person.

“Lemme out, I gotta pee.”

Then Bro starts. I climb up to the front seat and start the van to warm up while I grab my coats and run with Bro behind a snow bank to pee. Back at the van I pull on my hat and dig around in the back for breakfast. She says she’s leaving, so I just grab one garden burger (tis the season for me to eat frozen food) before I get back in the van and feed Bro.

The first most important order of business for the day is the laptop. It blew up and I wanna back up the hard drive before I send it off to Gateway. Luckily, the owner of the computer shop here is one of my customers. He didn’t know I was in town, and he’s shocked when I walk in the door. I tell him it’s a limited time deal. I’m outta here as soon as he backs up my hard drive.

We agree to trade data recovery for lapdance time, and when the CD’s start burning I sit in his lap and pull my shirt up. He’s a chronic cuddler. He just likes to squeeze me really tight, rub his cheek on my belly, and feel the crease under my boobs. So I sit there on his lap on the falling apart office chair and smother him with boobies while my CD’s burn. I’m highly amused by this.

When other customers come in he jumps up, practically dumping me on the floor, and runs to help them.

“You’re wife isn’t gonna show up, is she? Cause I don’t do wives,” I tell him when the customers leave.

“Nah, she’s at work,” he says, re-adjusting the blinds on the front door.

“‘kay,” I say, climbing back into his lap.

Later, while he packages and labels the CD’s for me, I read the cards on the wall from his grandkids. They’re extra cute and sweet.

When I get back in the van there’s a message on the phone. It’s my mechanic/customer/friend, and he just got back in town. Suddenly I realize how cold I am.

I call him back. “Are you getting a hotel?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it have a jacuzzi?”

“Do I need one?”

“No, but I need a hot bath.”

“C’mon over.”

He’s dirty from mechanicing, so we scrub each other’s backs in the shower and then he gets out to let me marinate in hot water. When I get out he’s sound asleep. He wakes up for a second and tells me to help myself to anything in the mini fridge. It’s one of them fancy hotel rooms, but not fancy enough for a jacuzzi. I crawl in bed with him to snuggle and nap while my hair dries.

I can never sleep in houses though. I wake up and feel constricted. My muscles are tense but there’s no where to go, just a box of a room. My hair’s almost dry, so I leave some chocolate for my friend and sneak out to my van, which is a cacoon and not a box.

On the way out of town I stop at my friends house to pick something up for another friend. She’s in bed reading and she says hey, you’re hairs wet, get your book and come snuggle till you dry out. I make some popcorn and we lay in bed reading (Julie of the Wolves for me, Charles deLint for her), eating popcorn, and talking about oil industry and the pebble creek mine until she invites me to just spend the night and I drive away because if I’m skipping town I gotta do it by midnight.