In Her Prime I was eighteen, she was thirty five. We had been working together for a little more than a year. I hadn't paid much attention to her, other than to be polite and communicate with her about work. It was a small business, so when my eighteenth birthday arrived they threw a little party. That was when I first began to suspect that she may have had designs. Twice she leaned over me to pick up something from the table, pushing her breasts against my back and saying, "Excuse me darling.", right in my ear. There were wide eyed looks from the others. I had been alone for some time. Fear and anger kept me alone, her initial advances were exciting and mentally painful at the same time. These were nothing compared to what would come next. Let me say that I have no idea what she saw in me or why it would motivate her to attract the young, angry boy that I was. My history up to then had been one of turmoil to say the least. At a young age I realized that my Mother was quite insane and my Father obsessed by religion. Part of Mothers insanity included the unwavering requirement to attend every church service that took place. Punishment was severe if I could not attend and just as severe if I were to disrupt any of these services in any way. So, by the age of five I knew how to keep a low profile and always be where I was supposed to be. Father was not physical with me, except in extreme cases, and often simply ignored my existence in favor of running the church. By the age of fifteen, I was to be the next minister in a long line of ministers. An occupation handed down through five generations. It was at this time that Mother made her first attempt to kill me. Looking back and with accumulated experience, I must say her first attempt was sloppy and unplanned. She simply grabbed a knife from the kitchen and chased me around until I locked myself in my room. Father was there in short order to overpower her and take the knife away. She treated me as always the next day and the incident was not mentioned again. I escaped death at her hands several more times by the time I was sixteen and left that house forever. Both of them are dead now, I saw them once in the forty years since. All those years of oppression and fear left me unable to trust and, I was convinced that any kind of love was an attempt to overpower and gain an upper hand. Thus, I cannot tell you why Ventura wanted me for any reason. She did though, want me, and set out to make me hers. Looking back now, I realize how many opportunities had come and gone. My lack of desire to pursue was apparently attractive in some way. I could never respond though and so remained alone and untouched. I sold drugs, and to relieve the boredom of waiting for some dumb ass to come and buy I worked at a local laundry as the dry cleaner. Ventura had been there from the beginning. She ran the “mangler�. A large machine designed to press sheets. It was composed of a series of large rollers and a lip to start the sheet on, if you were caught by it you were mangled. She needed help to operate it, so I helped. After the party things appeared to go back to normal, Ventura just talked while we worked. That woman could talk, all day long. I guess I was already like a boyfriend even then. I just nodded and made yes and no sounds and ever so often we would touch as we folded the sheets that came through.
One week and two days after the party Ventura and I were folding sheets, we stepped toward each other to complete the long fold and she made her first move. I took the sheet to finish fold and stack and her hand came to my left ear, I froze. She smiled and caressing my cheek as she brought her hand away showed me a little ball of lint, “Just cleaning you up little cowboy.”, the implication was clear and I had no response to give. She giggled, as much as a thirty-five year old woman can and we went back to work. Having no real knowledge of human nature, I assumed that if I failed to respond or even responded in the negative Vee, as we called her, would stop. I dislike being wrong, but must admit to benefiting greatly from this particular mistake. She was intractable. Over the next week there was a lot of touching. Not only while working together but in passing, of body parts that were not “in the way”. Vee had changed her attire somewhat, low cut blouses and push up bras were the order of the day, every day now. She adjusted my clothing frequently and found other reasons to touch me on a regular basis. I had not idea what to do really. It all came to a head while working with her on the mangler one day. Moving toward me to complete the long fold as before, she took the sheet from me tossing it aside. My reflex was to grab it up but she took my hand and with her other pulled me down by the neck and gave me my first real kiss. It was not a peck on the lips, not a romantic kiss, nothing like that. She bit my lower lip and when I opened my mouth she sucked my tongue into hers and did something I'd never even imagined with it. Quickly she released it and drove hers into my mouth all the while keeping me in a death grip. I grabbed her shoulders and started to push away but I was already far to weak to do that. Instead I pulled her close and kissed her back. Just as quickly as she had advanced she retreated, taking a couple of steps back and looking me up and down. I was, how to say it, ready for more. She smiled, “Little cowboy, let's go for a drink after work.”. I said “Sure.” as calmly as I could. Vee disappeared to the other side of the mangler and then it hit me, hard. From deep within me, a flood of emotions began to surface. I had no way of dealing with them, I had spent all my years keeping them locked away and avoiding anything that might excite them. The release manifest its self as a physical response. I lost all sense of control, my hands balled into fists, stumbling against the wall and my gut clinching spasmodically I let out a low growl like some kind of animal. I was awash in the pain of the struggle when Jenny came to me, “Are you ok?”, she was reaching out but seeing my face recoiled. I waved her off and moved to the back room to regain control in private. It took several minutes, when I was calm again I was not the same as I had been. A transformation had begun, I would never will be that boy again. In this little town were a very limited number of places to go and things to do. Main street was really a highway that passed through. There was a street name Whiskey Row and it lived up to that name. It was a line of bars all built side to side, three stories tall, of red brick. An old hotel on one end and a curios shop on the other. Across the street, city hall. A block over and a block down on Cortez street was the Head Hotel, it's the last name of the owner, still, as an adolescent I could not help but snicker when going past it. My Mothers firm hand was there to knock any such joy out of me. The bar with the most class on the Row was The Bird Cage Saloon. Upon entering you were in a cavernous room that rose uninterrupted to a vaulted ceiling of thousands of copper plates. Each one about a foot square and depicting a scene from the Victorian era. Not that you could see them, they were all thirty feet in the air. Some forty feet to the left two lofts had been built in. Each was a dance
hall of its own and different types of music played in each loft. On the ground floor country music was it. Vee strolled into the Cage on my arm like it was the most natural thing in the world. This is no joke or metaphor, there was alive band playing on the other side of the bar and they stop dead. The patrons all looked at us like we were aliens, the silence was thick. She just picked a table and told the bar tender, “Two beers please.”, there was a moment of indecision, then the bar tender said, “Yes Ma'am.”, the waitress got busy and the band struck up. I wasn't much of a drinker, so pretty quick I had to stop dancing and unload. I had no idea where the restroom was. I stopped the waitress to ask, she said, “What choo need stud?”, and then pointed the way after I stuttered out my request. Later on as I was paying the tab, Vee wrapped her arm around mine and said, “Come on little cowboy, I wanna show you somethin'.”. The bar tender was having a coughing fit as we left. From that night on my handle around town was Cowboy and the waitress never stopped calling me Stud. Vee and I went to the Head Hotel. Built into another strip of stores running down Cortez street, the Head Hotel was old and well kept. Antique wood comprised most of the buildings interior. All of it was highly polished and every chair and table in the lobby was of similar antiquity and luster. Vee belonged there, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen at the moment we stepped in there. It was like I had been transported to another dimension. I should have wept but I was unable. We sauntered over to the desk and met Eddy. He was in his fifties, with a withered arm, the result of a mortar shell in World War two. He looked up from his paper and smiled big, “Evenin' folks, what can I do for you?”, I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Just a room for the night Eddy.”. I knew him from church. He hesitated for a beat and then slipped the sign in book to me, took my forty dollars and lead us off to the elevator. On the way up he slipped that money back in my hand when Vee wasn't looking. He just kept talking about the weather and events in the town while Vee drew me in close and felt me. If a tiny town can have a presidential suit we got it that night. Eddy refused my tip, gave me a wink and the thumbs up and closed the door. It was me and Vee in the best room in town, she looked famished. I got a little worried but she wasn't going to let me run. She tossed her clothes aside and grabbed my belt, “Time for you first riding lesson Little Cowboy, I'll show you how.”, and, she did. As a young inexperienced and mentally somewhat damaged male, I must confess to being fearful and hesitant as we began to explore each other. Of course I made the rounds of the usual places, those spots that stand out, so to speak, but over the next several hours I also learned about places that elicit sounds and physical reactions I wasn't aware were that sensitive. Vee was a consummate teacher and she loved me. I loved her as well. She showed me it was safe to do that. After our first night I bought Vee a little gold necklace. Just a chain really. Her daughter was waiting in the driveway and spotted that necklace right away. She puffed up little and said loudly, almost shouting, “Mom! Did you give you body to that Little Cowboy?”, Vee just giggled, and took her daughter by both hands looking at her lovingly, “No, I took his.”, her daughter looked horrified and this time yelled, “MOM!”. With a passionate kiss she sent me home to rest. I needed it. For the six years we were together we made many memories. Not all of them were sexual, we were a couple. We traveled together on vacations, went shopping, I waited patiently at the salon for her to “get pretty” on many occasions. She fond over me after haircuts. We dressed for formal occasions and were barely able to contain ourselves until the event was over.
I cannot and do not want to forget the feel of her skin, the pressure of her body against mine, her whispering how she loved me in my ear as we climaxed together. All these things are a permanent fixture in my mind, as if it were a different life. Five years and two months after we became one, Vee was diagnosed with cancer, stage four, inoperable and terminal. I stayed strong, I owed her much more than that but strength was all I could offer. She tried to get me to leave and start over but there was no way I could do that, nor did I want to. I stayed by her side until the end. Several months later I witnessed her last breath in a hospital in that small town. We had said our goodbyes, and she had been sleeping under the influence of heavy doses of Morphine for several days. Even so, she opened her eyes, smiled at me and then left forever. I remember the crushing loneliness, her daughter crying out as Vee let out that last ragged breath, someone said, “Don't call her back, let her rest now.�, they drew me to them then, and took me away as the nurse began to straighten her limbs and prepare to move her body to the morgue. There was a wake attended by hundreds of people. I sat on the porch of her house and her son kept giving me beers. People I did not know streamed by with condolences throughout the day. I can only hope I was civil. I awoke on her bed the next morning, drained and mentally beaten, consumed aspirin and her daughter made me a breakfast and insisted I eat it. I thanked everyone profusely and retreated to my one room apartment. There I sat on the bed we had made love on many times, lost and alone. The funeral was difficult. Once again, strangers told me how sorry they were for my loss. Her son flipped the lever that lowered her into the ground, we tossed a handful of dirt and a flower onto the casket and left. I cannot rid myself of the pain of these memories. I do a great disservice to the memory of the woman that taught me to love by hanging on like this. But in the end, only Vee could guide me to humanity and she is gone.